The Guest

by Albert Camus

1
The schoolmaster was watching the two men climb toward him. One was on horseback, the other on foot. They had not yet tackled the abrupt rise leading to the schoolhouse built on the hillside. They were toiling onward, making slow progress in the snow, among the stones, on the vast expanse of the high, deserted plateau. From time to time the horse stumbled. Without hearing anything yet, he could see the breath issuing from the horses nostrils. One of the men, at least, knew the region. They were following the trail although it had disappeared days ago under a layer of dirty white snow. The schoolmaster calculated that it would take them half an hour to get onto the hill. It was cold; he went back into the school to get a sweater.
2
He crossed the empty, frigid classroom. On the blackboard the four rivers of France, 1 drawn with four different colored chalks, had been flowing toward their estuaries for the past three days. Snow had suddenly fallen in mid-October after eight months of drought without the transition of rain, and the twenty pupils, more or less, who lived in the villages scattered over the plateau had stopped coming. With fair weather they would return. Daru now heated only the single room that was lodging, adjoining the classroom and giving also onto the plateau to the east. Like the class cows, his window looked to the south too. On that side the school was a few kilometers from the point where the plateau began to slope toward the south. In clear weather could be seen the purple mass of the mountain range where the gap opened onto the desert.
2
Somewhat warmed, Daru returned to the window from which he had first seen the two men. They were no longer visible. Hence they must have tackled the rise. The sky was not so dark, for the snow had stopped falling during the night. The morning had opened with a dirty light which had scarcely become brighter as the ceiling of clouds lifted. At two in the after- noon it seemed as if the day were merely beginning. But still this was better than those three days when the thick snow was falling amidst unbroken darkness with little gusts of wind that rattled the double door of the class- room. Then Daru had spent long hours in his room, leaving it only to go to the shed and feed the chickens or get some coal. Fortunately the delivery truck from Tadjid, the nearest village to the north, had brought his supplies two days before the blizzard. It would return in forty-eight hours.
3
Besides, he had enough to resist a siege, for the little room was cluttered with bags of wheat that the administration left as a stock to distribute to those of his pupils whose families had suffered from the drought. Actually they had all been victims because they were all poor. Every day Daru would distribute a ration to the children. They had missed it, he knew, during these bad days. Possibly one of the fathers would come this afternoon and he could supply them with grain. It was just a matter of carrying them over to the next harvest. Now shiploads of wheat were arriving from France and the worst was over. But it would be hard to forget that poverty, that army of ragged ghosts wandering in the sunlight, the plateaus burned to a cinder month after month, the earth shriveled up little by little, literally scorched, every stone bursting into dust under one's foot. The sheep had died then by thousands and even a few men, here and there, sometimes without anyone's knowing.
4
In contrast with such poverty, he who lived almost like a monk in his remote schoolhouse, nonetheless satisfied with the little he had and with the rough life, had felt like a lord with his whitewashed walls, his narrow couch, his unpainted shelves, his well, and his weekly provision of water and food. And suddenly this snow, without warning, without the foretaste of rain. This is the way the region was, cruel to live in, even without men--who didn't help matters either. But Daru had been born here Everywhere else, he felt exiled.
5
He stepped out onto the terrace in front of the schoolhouse. The two men were now halfway up the slope. He recognized the horseman as Balducci the old gendarme he had known for a long time. Balducci was holding on the end of a rope an Arab who was walking behind him with hands bound and head lowered. The gendarme waved a greeting to which Daru did not reply, lost as he was in contemplation of the Arab dressed in a faded blue jellaba, 2 his feet in sandals but covered with socks of heavy raw wool, his head surmounted by a narrow, short cheche. They were approaching. Balducci was holding back his horse in order not to hurt the Arab, and the group was advancing slowly.
6
Within earshot, Balducci shouted: "One hour to do the three kilometers from El Ameur!" Daru did not answer. Short and square in his thick sweater he watched them climb. Not once had the Arab raised his head. "Hello," said Daru when they got up onto the terrace. "Come in and warm up." Balducci painfully got down from his horse without letting go the rope. From under his bristling mustache he smiled at the schoolmaster. His little dark eyes, deep-set under a tanned forehead, and his mouth surrounded with wrinkles made him look attentive and studious. Daru took the bridle ]led the horse to the shed, and came back to the two men, who were now waiting for him in the school. He led them into his room "I am going to heat up the classroom," he said. "We'll be more comfortable there." When he entered the room again, Balducci was on the couch. He had undone the rope tying him to the Arab, who had squashed near the stove. His hands still bound, the cheche pushed back on his head, he was looking toward the window. At first Daru noticed only his huge lips, fat, smooth, almost Negroid; yet his nose was straight, his eyes were dark and full of fever. The cheche revealed an obstinate forehead and, under the weathered skin now rather discolored by the cold, the whole face had a restless and rebellious look that struck Daru when the Arab, turning his face toward him, looked him straight in the eyes. "Go into the other room," said the schoolmaster' "and I'll make you some mint tea." ''Thanks,'' Balducci said. "what a chore! How I long for retirement." And addressing his prisoner in Arabic: "Come on, you." The Arab got up and, slowly, holding his bound wrists in front of him, went into the classroom.
7
With the tea, Daru brought a chair. But Balducci was already enthroned on the nearest pupil's desk and the Arab had squatted against the teacher's platform facing the stove, which stood between the desk and the window. When he held out the glass of tea to the prisoner, Daru hesitated at the sight of his bound hands. "He might perhaps be untied." "Sure," said Balducci. "That was for the trip." He started to get to his feet. But Daru, setting the glass on the floor, had knelt beside the Arab. Without saying anything, the Arab watched him with his feverish eyes. Once his hands were free, he rubbed his swollen wrists against each other, took the glass of tea, and sucked up the burning liquid in swift little sips.
8
"Good," said Daru. "And where are you headed?"Balducci withdrew his mustache from the tea. "Here, Son.""Odd pupils! And you're spending the night?" "No. I'm going back to El Ameur. And you will deliver this fellow to Tinguit. He is expected at police headquarters."Balducci was looking at Daru with a friendly little smile."What's this story?" asked the schoolmaster. "Are you pulling my leg?""No, son. Those are the orders.""The orders? I'm not . . ." Daru hesitated, not wanting to hurt the old Corsican. 3 "I mean, that's not my job." "What! What's the meaning of that? In wartime people do all kinds of jobs.""Then I'll wait for the declaration of war!"Balducci nodded. "O. K. But the orders exist and they concern you too. Things are brewing, it appears. There is talk of a forthcoming revolt. We are mobilized,in away. Daru still had his obstinate look.
9
Listen, Son," Balducci said. "I like you and you must understand. There's only a dozen of us at El Ameur to patrol throughout the whole territory of a small department 4 and I must get back in a hurry. I was told to hand this guy over to you and return without delay. He couldn't be kept there. His village was beginning to stir; they wanted to take him back. You must take him to Tinguit tomorrow before the day is over. Twenty kilometers shouldn't faze a husky fellow like you. After that, all will be over. You'll come back to your pupils and your comfortable life."
10
Behind the wall the horse could be heard snorting and pawing the earth. Daru was looking out the window. Decidedly, the weather was clearing and the light was increasing over the snowy plateau. When all the snow had melted, the sun would take over again and once more would burn the fields of stone. For days, still, the unchanging sky would shed its dry light on the solitary expanse where nothing had any connection with man.
"After all," he said, turning around toward Balducci, "what did he do?" And, before the gendarme had opened his mouth, he asked: "Does he speak French?" "No, not a word. We had been looking for him for a month, but they were hiding him. He killed his cousin.""Is he against us?" 5
11
"I don't think so. But you can never be sure.""Why did he kill?""A family squabble, I think one owned the other grain, it seems. It's not all clear. In short, he killed his cousin with a billhook. You know, like a sheep, kreeck!" Balducci made the gesture of drawing a blade across his throat and the Arab, his attention attracted, watched him with a sort of anxiety. Dam felt a sudden wrath against the mall, against all men with their rotten spite, their tireless hates, their blood lust.But the kettle was singing on the stove. He sened Balducci more tea hesitated, then served the Arab again, who, a second time, drank avidly his raised arms made the jellaba fall open and the schoolmastcr saw his thin, muscular chest. "Thanks, kid," Balducci said. "And now, I'm off."He got up and went toward the Arab, taking a small rope from his pocket."What are you doing?" Daru asked dryly.Balducci, disconcerted, showed him the rope."Don't bother."The old gendarme hesitated. "It's up to you. Of course, you are armed?" "I have my shotgun.""Where?""In the trunk."
12
"You ought to have it near your bed.""Why? I have nothing to fear.""You're crazy, son. If there's an uprising, no one is safe, we're all in the same boat.""I'll defend myself. I'll have time to see them coming."Balducci began to laugh, then suddenly the mustache covered the white teeth."You'll have time? O.K. That's just what I was saying. You have always been a little cracked. That's why I like you, my son was like that."At the same time he took out his revolver and put it on the desk."Keep it; I don't need two weapons from here to El Ameur."The revolver shone against the black paint of the table. When the gendarme turned toward him, the schoolmastcr caught the smell of leather and horseflesh. "Listen, Balducci," Daru said suddenly, "every bit of this disgusts me, and first of all your fellow here. But I won't hand him over. Fight, yes, if I have to. But not that."The old gendarme stood in front of him and looked at him severely. "You're being a fool," he said slowly. "I don't like it either. You don't get used to putting a rope on a man even after vears of it, and you're even ashamedÑyes, ashamed. But you can't let them have their way.""I won't hand him over," Daru said again."It's an order, son, and I repeat it.""That's right. Repeat to them what l've said to you: I won't hand him over."
13
Balducci made a visible effort to reflect. He looked at the Arab and at Daru. At last he decided."No, I won't tell them anything. If you want to drop us, go ahead. I'll not denounce you. I have an order to deliver the prisoner and I'm doing so. And now you'll just sign this paper for me.""There's no need. I'll not deny that you left him with me.""Don't be mean with me. I know you'll tell the truth. You're from hereabouts and you are a man. But you must sign, that's the rule."Daru opened his drawer, took out a little square bottle of purple ink, the red wooden penholder with the "sergeant-major" pen he used for making models of penmanship, and signed. The gendarme carfully folded the paper and put it into his wallet. Then he moved toward the door."I'll see you off," Daru said."No," said Balducci. "There's no use being polite. You insulted me."
14
He looked at the Arab, motionless in the same spot, sniffed peevishly, and turned away toward the door. "Good-by, son," he said. The door shut behind him. Balducci appeared suddenly outside the window and then disappeared. His footsteps were muffled by the snow. The horse stirred on the other side of the wall and several chickens fluttered in fright. A moment later Balducci reappeared outside the window leading the horse by the bridle. He walked toward the little rise without turning around and disappeared from sight with the horse following him. A big stone could be heard bouncing down. Daru walked back toward the prisoner, who, without stirring, never took his eyes off him. "Wait," the schoolmaster said in Arabic and went toward the bedroom. As he was going through the door, he had a second thought, went to the desk, took the revolver, and stuck it in his pocket. Then, without looking back, he went into his room.
15
For some time he lay on his couch watching the sky gradually close over, listening to the silence. It was this silence that had seemed painful to him during the first days here, after the war. He had requested a post in the little town at the base of the foothills separating the upper platueas from the desert. There, rocky walls, green and black to the north, pink and lavender to the south, marked the frontier of eternal summer. He had been named to a post farther north, on the plateau itself. In the beginning, the solitude and the silence had been hard for him on these wastelands peopled only by stones. Occasionally, furrows suggested cultivation, but they had been dug to uncover a certain kind of stone good for building. The only plowing here was to harvest rocks. Elsewhere a thin layer of soil accumulated in the hollows would be scraped out to enrich paltry village gardens. This is the way it was: bare rock covered three quarters of the region. Towns sprang up, flourished, then disappeared; men came by, loved one another or fought bitterly, then died. No one in this desert, neither he nor his guest, mattered. And yet, outside this desert neither or them, Daru knew, could have really lived.
16
When he got up, no noise came from the classroom. He was amazed at the unmixed joy he derived from the mere thought that the Arab might have fled and that he would be alone with no decision to make. But theprisoner was there. He had merely stretched out between the stove and the desk. With eyes open, he was staring at the ceiling. In that position, his thick lips were particularly noticeable, giving him a pouting look. "Come," said Daru. The Arab got up and followed him. In the bedroom, the schoolmaster pointed to a chair near the table under the window. The Arab sat down without taking his eyes off Daru. "Are you hungry?""Yes," the prisoner said.
17
Daru set the table for two. He took flour and oil, shaped a cake in a frying-pan, and lighted the litde stove that functioned on bottled gas. While the cake was cooking, he went out to the shed to get cheese, eggs, dates and condensed mflk. When the cake was done he set it on the window sill to cool, heated some condensed milk diluted with water, and beat up the eggs into an omelette. In one of his motions he knocked against the revolver stuck m his right pocket. He set the bowl down, went into the classroom and put the revolver in his desk drawer. When he came back to the room night was falling. He put on the light and served the Arab. "Eat," he said. The Arab took a piece of the cake, lifted it eagerly to his mouth, and stopped short."And you?" he asked."After you. I'll eat too."The thick lips opened slightly. The Arab hesitated, then bit into the cake determinedly.The meal over, the Arab looked at the schoolmaster. "Are you the judge?""No, I'm simply keeping you until tomorrow.""Why do you eat with me?""I'm hungry."
18
The Arab fell silent. Daru got up and went out. He brought back a folding bed from the shed, set it up between the table and the stove, perpendicular to his own bed. From a large suitcase which, upright in a corner, served as a shelf for papers, he took two blankets and arranged them on the camp bed. Then he stopped, felt useless, and sat down on his bed. There was nothing more to do or to get ready. He had to look at this man. He looked at him, therefore, trying to imagine his face bursting with rage. He couldn't do so. He could see nothing but the dark yet shining eyes and the animal mouth."Why did you kill him?" he asked in a voice whose hostile tone surprised him.The Arab looked away."He ran away. I ran after him."He raised his eyes to Daru again and they were full of a sort of woeful interrogation. "Now what will they do to me?""Are you afraid?"He stiffened, turning his eyes away."Are you sorry?"The Arab stared at him openmouthed. Obviously he did not understand. Daru's annoyance was growing. At the same time he felt awkward and self-conscious with his big body wedged between the two beds."Lie down there," he said impatiently. "That's your bed."
19
The Arab didn't move. He called to Daru:"Tell me!"The schoolmaster looked at him."Is the gendarme coming back tomorrow?""I don't know.""Are you coming with us?""I don't know. Why?"The prisoner got up and stretched out on top of the blankets, his feet toward the window. The light from the electric bulb shone straight into his eyes and he closed them at once."Why?" Daru repeated, standing beside the bed.The Arab opened his eyes under the blinding light and looked at him, trying not to blink."Come with us," he said.
20
In the middle of the night, Daru was still not asleep. He had gone to bed after undressing completely; he generally slept naked. But when he suddenly realized that he had nothing on, he hesitated. He felt vulnerable and the temptation came to him to put his clothes back on. Then he shrugged his shoulders; after all, he wasn't a child and, if need be, he could break his adversary in two. From his bed he could observe him, lying on his back, still motionless with his eyes closed under the harsh light. When Daru turned out the light, the darkness seemed to coagulate all of a sudden. Little bv little, the night came back to life in the window where the starless sky was stirring gently. The schoolmaster soon made out the body lying at his feet. The Arab still did not move, but his eyes seemed open. A light wind was prowling around the schoolhouse. Perhaps it would drive away the cIouds and the sun would reappear.
21
During the night the wind increased. The hens fluttered a little and then were silent. The Arab turned over on his side with his back to Daru, who thought he heard him moan. Then he listened for his guest's breathing, become heavier and more regular. He listened to that breath so close to him and mused without being able to go to sleep. In this room where he had been sleeping alone for a year, this presence bothered him. But it bothered him also by imposing on him a sort of brotherhood he knew well but refused to accept in the present circumstances. Men who share the same rooms, soldiers or prisoners, develop a strange alliance as if, having cast off their armor with their clothing, they fraternized every evening, over and above their differences, in the ancient community of dream and fatigue. But Daru shook himself; he didn't like such musings, and it was essential to sleep.
22
A little later, however, when the Arab stirred slightly, the schoolmaster was still not asleep. When the prisoner made a second move, he stiffened, on the alert. The Arab was lifting himself slowly on his arms with almost the motion of a sleepwalker. Seated upright in bed, he waited motionless without turning his head toward Daru, as if he were listening attentively. Daru did not stir; it had just occurred to him that the revolver was still in the drawer of his desk. It was better to act at once. Yet he continued to observe the prisoner, who, with the same slithery motion, put his feet on the ground, waited again, then began to stand up slowly. Daru was about to call out to him when the Arab began to walk, in a quite natural but extraordinarily silent way. He was heading toward the door at the end of the room that opened into the shed. He lifted the latch with precaution and went out, pushing the door behind him but without shutting it. Daru had not stirred. "He is running away," he merely thought. "Good riddance!" Yet he listened attentively. The hens were not fluttering; the guest must be on the plateau. A faint sound of water reached him, and he didn't know what it was until the Arab again stood framed in the doorway, closed the door carefully, and came back to bed without a sound. Then Daru turned his back on him and fell asleep. Still later he seemed, from the depths of his sleep, to hear furtive steps around the schoolhouse. "I'm dreaming! I'm dreaming!" he repeated to himself. And he went on sleeping.
23
When he awoke, the sky was clear; the loose window let in a cold, pure air. The Arab was asleep, hunched up under the blankets now, his mouth open, utterly relaxed. But when Daru shook him, he started dreadfully staring at Daru with wild eyes as if he had never seen him and such a frightened expression that the schoolmaster stepped back. "Don't be afraid. It's me. You must eat." The Arab nodded his head and said yes. Calm had returned to his face, but his expression was vacant and listless.
24
The coffee was ready. They drank it seated together on the folding bed as they munched their pieces of the cake. Then Daru led the Arab under the shed and showed him the faucet where he washed. He went back into the room, folded the blankets and the bed, made his own bed and put the room in order. Then he went through the classroom and out onto the terrace. The sun was already rising in the blue sky; a soft, bright light was bathing the deserted plateau. On the ridge the snow was melting in spots. Ttlc stones were about to reappear. Crouched on the edge of the plateau, the schoolmaster looked at the deserted expanse. He thought of Balducci. He had hurt him, for he had sent him off in a way as if he didn't want to bc associated with him. He could still hear the gendarme's farewell and, without knowing why, he felt strangely empty and vulnerable. At that moment, from the other side of the schoolhouse, the prisoner coughed. Daru listened to him almost despite himself and then furious, threw a pebble that whistled through the air before sinking into the snow. That man's stupid crime revolted him, but to hand him over was contrary to honor. Merely thinking of it made him smart with humiliation. And he cursed at one and the same time his own people who had sent him this Arab and the Arab too who had dared to kill and not managed to get away. Dary got up, walked in a circle on the terrace, waited motionless, and then went back into the schoolhouse.
25
The Arab, leaning over the cement floor of the shed, was washing his teeth with two fingers. Daru looked at him and said: "Come." He went back into the room ahead of the prisoner. He slipped a hunting-jacket on over his sweater and put on walking-shoes. Standing, he waited until the Arab had put on his cheche and sandals. They went into the classroom and the schoolmaster pointed to the exit, saying: "Go ahead." The fellow didn't budge. "I'm coming," said Daru. The Arab went out. Daru went back into the room and made a package of pieces of rusk, dates, and sugar. In the classroom, before going out, he hesitated a second in front of his desk, then crossed the threshold and locked the door. "That's the way," he said. He started toward the east, followed by the prisoner. But, a short distance from the schoolhouse, he thought he heard a slight sound behind them. He retraced his steps and examined the surroundings of the house, there was no one there. The Arab watched him without seeming to understand. "Come on," said Daru.
26
They walked for an hour and rested beside a sharp peak of limestone. The snow was melting faster and faster and the sun was drinking up the puddles at once, rapidly cleaning the plateau, which gradually dried and vibrated like the air itself. When they resumed walking, the ground rang under their feet. From time to time a bird rent the space in front of them with a joyful cry. Daru breathed in deeply the fresh morning light. He felt a sort of rapture before the vast familiar expanse, now almost entirely yellow under its dome of blue sky. They walked an hour more, descending toward the south. They reached a level height made up of crumbly rocks. From there on, the plateau sloped down, eastward, toward a low plain where there were a few spindly trees and, to the south, toward outcroppings of rock that gave the landscape a chaotic look.
27
Daru surveyed the two directions. There was nothing but the sky on the horizon. Not a man could be seen. He turned toward the Arab, who was looking at him blankly. Daru held out the package to him. "Take it," he said. "There are dates, bread, and sugar. You can hold out for two days. Here are a thousand francs too." The Arab took the package and the money but kept his full hands at chest level as if he didn't know what to do with what was being given him. "Now look," the schoolmaster said as he pointed in the direction of the east, "there's the way to Tinguit. You have a two-hour walk. At Tinguit you'll find the administration and the police. They are expecting you." The Arab looked toward the east, still holding the package and the money against his chest. Daru took his elbow and turned him rather roughly toward the south. At the foot of the height on which they stood could be seen a faint path. "That's the trail across the plateau. In a day's walk from here you'll find pasturelands and the first nomads. They'll take you in and shelter you according to their law." The Arab had now turned toward Daru and a sort of panic was visible in his expression. "Listen," he said. Daru shook his head: "No, be quiet. Now I'm leaving you." He turned his back on him, took two long steps in the direction of the school, looking hesitantly at the motionless Arab and started off again. For a few minutes he heard nothing but his own step resounding on the cold ground and did not turn his head. A moment later however he turned around. The Arab was still there on the edge of the hill his arms hanging now, and he was looking at the schoolmaster. Daru felt something rise in his throat. But he swore with impatience, waved vaguely, and started off again. He had already gone some distance when he again stopped and looked. There was no longer anyone on the hill.
28
Daru hesitated. The sun was now rather high in the sky and was beginning to beat down on his head. The schoolmaster retraced his steps at first somewhat uncertainly then with decision. When he reached the little hill he was bathed in sweat. He climbed it as fast as he could and stopped. Out of breath at the top. The rock-ficelds to the south stood out sharply against the blue sky but on the plain to the east a steamy heat was already rising. And in that slight haze Daru with heavy heart made out the Arab walking slowly on the road to prison.
29
A little later standing before the window of thc classroom the school master was watching the clear light bathing the whole surface of the plateau but he hardly saw it. Behind him on the blackboard among the winding French rivers sprawled the clumsily chalked-up words he had just read. "You handcd over our brothnr. You will pay for this." Daru looked at the sky, the plateau and beyond the invisible lands stretching all the way to the sea. In this vast landscape he had loved so much, he was alone.

Albert Camus 阿爾貝·卡繆

阿爾貝·卡繆（1913-1960），法國作家，1913年11月7日生於第一次世界大戰前夕的阿爾及利亞的蒙多維——法屬阿爾吉利亞，父親是歐洲人，母親是西班牙血統，自己卻在北非的貧民窟長大。父親作為一戰的士兵戰死疆場，卡繆直接參加了第二次世界大戰的抵抗運動。從少年時代起，貧窮與死亡的陰影就與卡繆長相伴，這使卡繆更能深切地體會人生的荒謬與荒誕，在他的一生中，無論是他的作品還是他的現實人生，他都在與荒誕作鬥爭。處在思潮動盪的時代，卡繆一直糾纏在藝術家和政治家之間。1942年，卡繆離開阿爾及利亞前往巴黎，他開始秘密地活躍於抵抗運動中，主編地下刊物《戰鬥報》。在這個時期，卡繆不躲避任何戰鬥，他反對歧視北非穆斯林，也援助西班牙流放者，又同情斯大林的受害者……他的許多重要作品如小說《異鄉人》、《鼠疫》，哲學隨筆《西西弗神話》和長篇論著《反抗者》都在這個時期出世。1957年，他因為「作為一個藝術家和道德家，通過一個存在主義者對世界荒誕性的透視，形象地體現了現代人的道德良知，戲劇性地表現了自由、正義和死亡等有關人類存在的最基本的問題」，被授予諾貝爾文學獎。
卡繆1935年開始從事戲劇活動，曾創辦過劇團，寫過劇本，當過演員。戲劇在他一生的創作中佔有重要地位。主要劇本有《誤會》（1944）、《卡利古拉》（1945）、《戒嚴》（1948）和《正義》（1949）等。除了劇本，卡繆還寫了許多著名的小說。中篇小說《異鄉人》不僅是他的成名作，也是荒誕小說的代表作。該作與同年發表的哲學論文集《西西弗的神話》，在歐美產生巨大影響。長篇小說《鼠疫》（1947）曾獲法國批評獎，它進一步確立了作家在西方當代文學中的重要地位，「因為他的重要文學創作以明徹的認真態度闡明了我們這個時代人類良知的問題」，1957年卡繆獲得諾貝爾文學獎。1960年，在一次車禍中不幸身亡。
卡繆在荒誕的車禍中喪身，實屬辛辣的哲學諷刺。因為他思想的中心是如何對人類處境做出一個思想深刻的正確回答……人們毫不感到意外，我們的時代接受了卡繆的觀點。血腥的再次世界大戰，可怕的氫彈威脅，這一切使現代社會能夠接受加繆嚴肅的哲學，並使之長存於人們的心中。
——《紐約時報》對卡繆之死的評論
卡繆在50年代以前，一直被看作是存在主義者，儘管他自己多次否認。1951年卡繆發表了哲學論文《反抗者》之後，引起一場與薩特等人長達一年之久的論戰，最後與薩特決裂，這時人們才發現，加繆是荒誕哲學及其文學的代表人物。
卡繆的創作特色是用白描手法，極其客觀地表現人物的一言一行。文筆簡潔、明快、樸實，保持傳統的優雅筆調和純正風格。他的「小說從嚴都是形象的哲學」，蘊含著哲學家對人生的嚴肅思考和藝術家的強烈激情。在短暫的創作生涯中，他贏得了遠遠超過前輩的榮譽。他的哲學及其文學作品對後期的荒誕派戲劇和新小說影響很大。評論家認為卡繆的作品體現了適應工業時代要求的新人道主義精神。薩特說他在一個把現實主義當作金牛膜拜的時代裡，肯定了精神世界的存在。
作品：《誤會》、《卡利古拉》、《戒嚴》、《正義》、《異鄉人》、《西西弗的神話》、《鼠疫》等。
小說簡介：
小說《異鄉人》是卡繆的成名作。卡繆把《異鄉人》的主題概括為一句話：「在我們的社會裡，任何在母親下葬時不哭的人都有被判死刑的危險。」這種近乎可笑的說法隱藏著一個十分嚴酷的邏輯：任何違反社會的基本法則的人必將受到社會的懲罰。翻開卡繆的《異鄉人》，我們看到的第一句話是「今天，媽媽死了。」可是陡然一轉：「也許是昨天……」一折一轉，看似不經意，卻包含了無限意味。「媽媽……」，這樣親暱的口吻分明只會出自孩子的口中，可是說話人恰恰不是孩子，而是一個叫默而索的年輕人。默而索不用成年人說的「母親」而說「媽媽」，這首先就讓我們感動。我們會想：他在內心深處該是對母親蘊藏著多麼溫柔多麼純真的感情啊！可是他接到母親去世的電報時沒有哭，就是在母親下葬時也沒有哭，他糊里糊塗地看著母親下葬，甚至不知道母親的年齡……尤其令我們感到憤慨的是：在母親下葬後的第二天，他就去海濱游泳，和女友一起去看滑稽影片，並且和她一起回到自己的住處。這就是那個看起來對母親飽含深情的默爾索麼？可是不止於此，當名聲不好的鄰居要懲罰自己的情婦，求他幫助寫一封信，他竟答應了。老闆建議他去巴黎開設一個辦事處，他毫無熱情。對於巴黎這個國際大都市，他說：「很髒。有鴿子，有黑乎乎的院子……」對自己的婚姻大事，他表示無論什麼都行。最後，他迷迷糊糊地殺了人，在法庭上他一點也不關心法庭對自己的審判。在就要被處死的前夜，他居然感到他「過去曾經是幸福的」，「現在仍然是幸福的」。他大概覺得這還不夠，他又說了這樣一句讓人莫名其妙的話：「為了使我感到不那麼孤獨，我還希望處決我的那一天有很多人來觀看，希望他們對我報以仇恨的喊叫聲。」默而索的消極、冷漠、無動於衷、執著於瞬間的人生等無疑具有一種象徵的意義：荒誕，這個存在主義作家們一直念念不忘的關鍵詞。《異鄉人》正是荒誕人生的一幕。莫爾索也是西西弗的兄弟。而卡繆在為美國版《異鄉人》寫的序言中說：「他遠非麻木不仁，他懷有一種執著而深沉的激情，對於絕對和真實的激情。」這也許是不錯的，莫爾索就是卡繆心目中那種「義無反顧地生活」、「盡其可能地生活」的人，他聲稱自己過去和現在都是幸福的。這正符合卡繆的想法：「幸福和荒誕是同一塊土地上的兩個兒子」，幸福可以「產生於荒誕的發現」。默而索是在監獄裡獲得荒誕感的，一聲槍響驚醒了他。於是，默而索成了荒誕的人，也就是卡繆所以為的幸福的人。
《異鄉人》是法國作家卡繆的成名作，同時也是存在主義文學的傑出作品之一，該書以一種客觀記錄式的「零度風格」，粗《異鄉人》線條地描述了主人公默而索在荒繆的世界中經歷的種種荒繆的事，以及自身的荒誕體驗。從參加母親的葬禮到偶然成了殺人犯，再到被判處死刑，默而索似乎對一切都無動於衷，冷漠的理性的而又非理性的存在著，他像一個象徵性的符號，代表了一種普遍的存在，又像是一個血紅色的燈塔，具有高度的警示性。主要因為這部小說卡繆獲得1957年的諾貝爾文學獎。
《異鄉人》的主人公莫爾索是阿爾及爾一個公司的法國職員，一個年輕的小伙子。小說通過自述形式來表現出莫爾索對一切都似乎漠不關心，無動於衷。具體的細節不加贅述。小說分兩個部分，第一部分敘述莫爾索回到鄉下參加母親的葬禮，以及到他莫名其妙地在海灘上殺人。這一部分按時間順序敘述，像記流水帳，顯得有些囉嗦。我們看到的莫爾索是那麼冷漠，簡直只是個純感官的動物，沒有思考。莫爾索殺人僅僅是因為太陽，這看起來真的顯得荒謬，可事實就是如此。
第二部分是莫爾索被審訊的過程。這一部分主要通過莫爾索在監獄裡的生活，他逐漸習慣了失去自由，靠回憶打發日子。他想的東西很多，但是他對死並不感到恐懼和悲哀，他認為30歲死或70歲死關係並不大。他拒絕神甫為他祈禱，他因為不耐煩而終於爆發。「他人的死，對母親的愛，與我何干？……他所說的上帝，他們選擇的生活，他們選中的命運，又都與我何干？」死亡的前夜，莫爾索第一次向這個世界敞開了心扉，他覺得自己過去是幸福的，現在仍然是幸福的，他至死都是這個世界的「局外人」，他感受到了自己生之世界的荒謬，他至死幸福。
《卡裡古拉》講述的是古羅馬時代的故事。古羅馬皇帝卡裡古拉在一個偶然的機會悟到了人生的真理——人難逃一死所以並不幸福。世界的荒誕令人無法容忍，而人們卻偏偏缺乏認識，生活在假象中。在荒誕面前，在惡的命運面前，人們麻木不仁，於是他採取極端的辦法，把自己裝扮成命運的模樣，實行暴政，任意殺戮，使人們深感難以活下去從而清醒，認清命運的真正面目。可悲的是卡裡古拉自己倒成了惡的化身，荒誕的代表，最終走向了毀滅。
《西西弗的神話》：西西弗是個荒謬的英雄。他之所以是荒謬的英雄，是因為他的激情和他所經受的磨難。他藐視神明，仇恨死亡，對生活充滿激情，這必然使他受到難以用言語盡述的非人折磨。他以自己的整個身心致力於一種沒有效果的事業。而這是為了對大地的無限熱愛必須付出的代價。當卡繆這樣看這個古代神話中的人物時，存在主義的哲學之眼就進入了那個古代的神話。他讚美西西弗這個抗拒荒謬的英雄。卡繆的一生也可以這麼看，在悲觀中樂觀地生存，積極地介入生活與社會，與命運抗爭，與政敵抗爭，與一切不正義的現象抗爭；他愛生命，愛藝術，他承認生命的荒謬，但是他絕不是一個單純的虛無主義者。
《鼠疫》是一部寓言體的小說。它是一篇有關法西斯的寓言。當時處於法西斯專制強權統治下的法國人民———除了一部分從事抵抗運動者外———就像歐洲中世紀鼠疫流行期間一樣，長期過著與外界隔絕的囚禁生活；他們在「鼠疫」城中，不但隨時面臨死神的威脅，而且日夜忍受著生離死別痛苦不堪的折磨。卡繆繼續他的存在主義主題：世界是荒謬的，現實本身是不可認識的，人的存在缺乏理性。卡繆自己曾這樣說：「《異鄉人》寫的是人在荒謬的世界中孤立無援，身不由已；《鼠疫》寫的是面臨同樣的荒唐的生存時，儘管每個人的觀點不同，但從深處看來，卻有等同的地方。」但是從《異鄉人》到《鼠疫》卡繆的思想已經發生了變化。裡厄醫生不再如莫爾索那樣對一切都漠不關心，他與不知從何而來的瘟疫展開鬥爭，而且在鬥爭中，他看到愛情、友誼和母愛給人生帶來的幸福。裡厄醫生的人不是局外人，他看到了只有道德高尚、勇於奉獻的人聯合起來戰勝瘟疫，人類社會才有一線希望。小說結構嚴謹，人物性格鮮明，對不同處境中人物心理和感情的變化刻畫得深入細緻；人與瘟神搏鬥的史詩篇章、生離死別的動人哀歌、友誼與愛情的美麗詩篇、地中海的奇幻畫面，增加了小說的藝術魅力。

The Flowers of Evil 惡之華

By Charles Baudelaire



To the Reader


Infatuation, sadism, lust, avarice
possess our souls and drain the body's force;
we spoonfeed our adorable remorse,
like whores or beggars nourishing their lice.

Our sins are mulish, our confessions lies;
we play to the grandstand with our promises,
we pray for tears to wash our filthiness;
importantly pissing hogwash through our styes.

The devil, watching by our sickbeds, hissed
old smut and folk-songs to our soul, until
the soft and precious metal of our will
boiled off in vapor for this scientist.


Each day his flattery makes us eat a toad,
and each step forward is a step to hell,
unmoved, through previous corpses and their smell
asphyxiate our progress on this road.


Like the poor lush who cannot satisfy,
we try to force our sex with counterfeits,
die drooling on the deliquescent tits,
mouthing the rotten orange we suck dry.


Gangs of demons are boozing in our brain —
ranked, swarming, like a million warrior-ants,
they drown and choke the cistern of our wants;
each time we breathe, we tear our lungs with pain.


If poison, arson, sex, narcotics, knives
have not yet ruined us and stitched their quick,
loud patterns on the canvas of our lives,
it is because our souls are still too sick.


Among the vermin, jackals, panthers, lice,
gorillas and tarantulas that suck
and snatch and scratch and defecate and fuck
in the disorderly circus of our vice,


there's one more ugly and abortive birth.
It makes no gestures, never beats its breast,
yet it would murder for a moment's rest,
and willingly annihilate the earth.


It's BOREDOM. Tears have glued its eyes together.
You know it well, my Reader. This obscene
beast chain-smokes yawning for the guillotine —
you — hypocrite Reader — my double — my brother!

致讀者１

愚蠢、謬誤、罪孽、吝嗇２，
它們佔據我們的靈魂，折磨我們的肉體，
就像乞丐餵養自己身上的虱子，
我們竟然哺育我們可愛的悔恨。

我們的罪孽深重，我們的悔恨無力;
我們想為懺悔獲取厚報，
我們高興地走上泥濘的小道，
自以為不值錢的淚水能洗盡污濁。

在惡之枕畔，三倍大的魔王３，
久久地搖晃我們的靈魂，使它走向麻木，
我們的意志貴如黃金，
卻被它這位高明的化學師化為輕煙。

正是這個魔鬼操縱著我們的生命線４，
我們竟甘願受它的誘惑，
一步一步墮入地獄，
穿過污濁的黑暗而不自知。

像一個赤貧的浪子，狂吻猛吸
老妓受盡凌辱的雙乳，
居然一路偷歡，竭力搾取幸福，
像擠搾乾癟的橙子。

如同無數蠕蟲，一群惡魔
麇集在我們的頭腦裡狂歡，
我們張口呼吸，胸中的死神，
就像無水之河，呻吟著幸福。

如果說兇殺、縱火、投毒、姦淫，
還不能用它那可笑的素描，
點綴我們可憐的平庸的命運５，
唉，那是我們的心不夠大膽６。

可是，在我們這污穢不堪的罪惡的動物世界裡，
所有正在狂吠、咆哮、亂爬，尖啼的豺狼、
虎豹、猴子、禿鷲、蛇蠍７，
以及各種怪物之中，

卻有一隻野獸，它更醜陋、更凶險、更卑劣！
雖然它並不凶相畢露，大喊大叫，
但它卻處心積慮地使人間淪為廢墟，
即使打呵欠也想吞沒整個世界。

這就是「厭倦」８——它不由自主地湧滿淚水，
吸著水煙９，夢想著斷頭台。
讀者，你認識它，這不好對付的怪物，
——虛偽的讀者10，——我的兄弟11，——我的同類！

[註釋]

１原詩最早發表於1855年6月1日《兩世界評論》，為組詩《惡之花》18首的第1首，標題為《致讀者》;收入1857年初版及1861年第2版《惡之花》時，亦用此標題，第3版（1868年版，由阿塞利諾和邦維爾編訂，戈蒂耶作序）改標題為《序》。
２列舉困擾現代人的各種罪惡。
３三倍大Trismégiste，古希臘神話中，希臘人對守護神赫梅斯（Hermès，羅馬神話中的麥丘裡Mercure）的別號，也是對埃及的大神多特（Thêt，Thoth，Tot 或Tehut）的尊稱。他是智慧、學問、魔術、煉金術之神。
４指邪惡之力。
５指不能大作為的平庸的命運。
６指平庸之人的平庸之行。
７這些可僧的動物象徵現代人的卑劣行徑。
８原為ennui，也作無聊解，含有厭惡、委靡、抑鬱、失意、鬱悶、憂鬱等意，是資產階級無法治癒的「世紀病」。
９水煙，原文Houka，應譯為水煙筒，此處意譯為水煙;東方印度、土爾其等地使用的煙具，轉入西方，成為藝術家的飾品之一。
10不僅指作者，讀者也具虛偽之質。
11源自詩人拉·馬丁的《信仰》（la Foi）中的詩句：「像我一樣，我的朋友，我的兄弟。」英國詩人艾略特（T·S·Eliot，1888‐1965）的名詩《荒原》（1922）第76行加以引用。

Correspondences


All nature is one temple, the living aisles whereof
Murmur in a soft language, half strange, half understood;
Man wanders there as through a cabalistic wood,
Aware of eyes that watch him in the leaves above.

Like voices echoing in his senses from beyond
Life's watery source, and which into one voice unite,
Vast as the turning planet clothed in darkness and light,
So do all sounds and hues and fragrances correspond.

Perfumes there are as sweet as the music of pipes and strings,
As pure as the naked flesh of children, as full of peace
As wide green prairies — and there are others, having the whole

Corrupt proud all-pervasiveness of infinite things,
Like frankincense, and musk, and myrrh, and ambergris,
That cry of the ecstasy of the body and of the soul.


契合１


大自然是座神殿２，那充滿活力的柱石，
時常發出神奇的聲音；
人們從此穿越像征的森林，
森林以熟識的目光將他注視。

正如悠悠的回聲遙遙的回應，
融入幽遠深邃的和諧之中，
像光明無邊無際，又似黑暗無窮無盡，
芳香、色澤、音響互為感知。

有的馨香清麗如幼兒的肌膚，
柔和如雙簧管的輕音，青翠如綠色，
另外一些，則已腐朽，涵蓋了萬物。

像無限無極的事物四散飛揚，
彷彿龍涎香、麝香、安息香和熏香，
渾然一體抒吐著性靈的振奮與感官的激昂。


[註釋]１原詩約寫於1845年左右，直接發表於初版的《惡之花》，位居第四首，其它各版亦同。原詩題是「CORRESPONDANCES」，是哲學、宗教、美學通用術語，亦譯作「感應」但譯者偏愛「契合」；我認為它更表現此詩的主題。２把自然比為神殿，是法國文學常見的比喻。


Her Hair

O fleece that down her nape rolls, plume on plume!
O curls! O scent of nonchalance and ease!
What ecstasy! To populate this room
With memories it harbours in its gloom,
I'd shake it like a banner on the breeze.

Hot Africa and languid Asia play
(An absent world, defunct, and far away)
Within that scented forest, dark and dim.
As other souls on waves of music swim,
Mine on its perfume sails, as on the spray.

I'll journey there, where man and sap-filled tree
Swoon in hot light for hours. Be you my sea,
Strong tresses! Be the breakers and gales
That waft me. Your black river holds, for me,
A dream of masts and rowers, flames and sails.

A port, resounding there, my soul delivers
With long deep draughts of perfumes, scent, and clamour,
Where ships, that glide through gold and purple rivers,
Fling wide their vast arms to embrace the glamour
Of skies wherein the heat forever quivers.

I'll plunge my head in it, half drunk with pleasure—
In this black ocean that engulfs her form.
My soul, caressed with wavelets there may measure
Infinite rocking in embalmed leisure,
Creative idleness that fears no storm!

Blue tresses, like a shadow-stretching tent,
You shed the blue of heavens round and far.
Along its downy fringes as I went
I reeled half-drunken to confuse the scent
Of oil of coconuts, with musk and tar.

My hand forever in your mane so dense,
Rubies and pearls and sapphires there will sow,
That you to my desire be never slow —
Oasis of my dreams, and gourd from whence
Deep-draughted wines of memory will flow.


頭髮

哦，濃密的頭髮直滾到脖子上！
哦，發卷，哦，充滿慵懶的香氣！
銷魂！為了今晚使陰暗的臥房
讓沉睡在頭髮中的回憶往上，
我把它像手帕般在空中搖曳。

懶洋洋的亞洲，火辣辣的非洲，
一個世界，遙遠，消失，幾乎死亡，
這芳香的森林在你深處居留！
像別人的精神在音樂上飄遊，
愛人！我的精神在香氣中蕩漾。

我將去那邊，樹和人精力旺盛，
都在赤日炎炎中長久地癡迷；
粗大的髮辮，請做載我的浪峰！
烏木色的海，你容納眩目的夢，
那裡有風帆、槳手、桅檣和彩旗；

喧鬧的港口，在那裡我的靈魂
大口地痛飲芳香、色彩和音響；
船隻在黃金和閃光綢中行進，
張開它們巨大的手臂來親吻
那顫動著炎熱的晴空的榮光。

我要將我那酷愛陶醉的腦袋，
埋進這海套著海的黑色大洋，
我微妙的精神，有船搖的撫愛，
將再度找到你，哦豐饒的倦怠！
香氣襲人之閒散的無盡搖蕩！

藍色的頭髮，黑夜張起的穹廬
你為我讓天空變得渾圓深廣，
在你那頭髮的岸邊絨毛細細，
我狂熱地陶醉於混合的香氣，
它們發自椰子油、柏油和麝香。

長久！永遠！你的頭髮又密又稠，
我的手把紅藍寶石、珍珠播種，
為了讓你永不拒絕我的欲求！
你可是令我神遊的一塊綠洲？
讓我大口地吮吸回憶之酒的瓶？


A Carcass

My love, do you recall the object which we saw,
That fair, sweet, summer morn!
At a turn in the path a foul carcass
On a gravel strewn bed,

Its legs raised in the air, like a lustful woman,
Burning and dripping with poisons,
Displayed in a shameless, nonchalant way
Its belly, swollen with gases.

The sun shone down upon that putrescence,
As if to roast it to a turn,
And to give back a hundredfold to great Nature
The elements she had combined;

And the sky was watching that superb cadaver
Blossom like a flower.
So frightful was the stench that you believed
You'd faint away upon the grass.

The blow-flies were buzzing round that putrid belly,
From which came forth black battalions
Of maggots, which oozed out like a heavy liquid
All along those living tatters.

All this was descending and rising like a wave,
Or poured out with a crackling sound;
One would have said the body, swollen with a vague breath,
Lived by multiplication.

And this world gave forth singular music,
Like running water or the wind,
Or the grain that winnowers with a rhythmic motion
Shake in their winnowing baskets.

The forms disappeared and were no more than a dream,
A sketch that slowly falls
Upon the forgotten canvas, that the artist
Completes from memory alone.

Crouched behind the boulders, an anxious dog
Watched us with angry eye,
Waiting for the moment to take back from the carcass
The morsel he had left.

— And yet you will be like this corruption,
Like this horrible infection,
Star of my eyes, sunlight of my being,
You, my angel and my passion!

Yes! thus will you be, queen of the Graces,
After the last sacraments,
When you go beneath grass and luxuriant flowers,
To molder among the bones of the dead.

Then, O my beauty! say to the worms who will
Devour you with kisses,
That I have kept the form and the divine essence
Of my decomposed love!

腐屍

愛人，想想我們曾經見過的東西，
在涼夏的美麗的早晨：
在小路拐彎處，一具醜惡的腐屍
在鋪石子的床上橫陳，

兩腿翹得很高，像個淫蕩的女子，
冒著熱騰騰的毒氣，
顯出隨隨便便、恬不知恥的樣子，
敞開充滿惡臭的肚皮。

太陽照射著這具腐敗的屍身，
好像要把它燒得熟爛，
要把自然結合在一起的養分
百倍歸還偉大的自然。

天空對著這壯麗的屍體凝望，
好像一朵開放的花苞，
臭氣是那樣強烈，你在草地之上
好像被熏得快要昏倒。

蒼蠅嗡嗡地聚在腐敗的肚子上，
黑壓壓的一大群蛆蟲
從肚子裡鑽出來，沿著臭皮囊，
像粘稠的膿一樣流動。

這些像潮水般洶湧起伏的蛆子
嘩啦嘩啦地亂撞亂爬，
好像這個被微風吹得膨脹的身體
還在度著繁殖的生涯。

這個世界奏出一種奇怪的音樂，１
像水在流，像風在鳴響，
又像簸谷者作出有節奏的動作，
用他的簸箕簸谷一樣。

形象已經消失，只留下夢影依稀，２
就像對著遺忘的畫布，
一位畫家單單憑著他的記憶，
慢慢描繪出一幅草圖。３

躲在岩石後面、露出憤怒的眼光
望著我們的焦急的狗，
它在等待機會，要從屍骸的身上
再攫取一塊剩下的肉。

——可是將來，你也要像這臭貨一樣，
像這令人恐怖的腐屍，
我的眼睛的明星，我的心性的太陽，
你、我的激情，我的天使！

是的！優美之女王，你也難以避免，
在領過臨終聖事之後，
當你前去那野草繁花之下長眠，
在白骨之間歸於腐朽。

那時，我的美人，請你告訴它們，
那些吻你吃你的蛆子，
舊愛雖已分解，可是，我已保存
愛的形姿和愛的神髓！
　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　
據普拉隆所述，此詩約作於一八四三年以前。直接
發表於初版《惡之花》。詩中的愛人指讓娜·迪瓦爾。
本詩對路旁的屍體作寫實的描繪，詩人並常在酒店和畫
室中朗誦，因而使他以「屍體文學的詩人」而聞名於世。
原題Une Charogoe，我國文獻中多譯作「死牲口」或
「死獸」，此處應為一「女屍」。
１指蒼蠅嗡嗡地飛，蛆蟲窸窸窣窣地鑽動。
２以上所述均為過去所見，現在回想起來，只留下夢
影而已。
３波德萊爾曾批評當時的風景畫家不重視憑記憶作畫，見《現代生活的畫家》中《記憶的藝術》。


Song of Autumn

I

Soon we shall plunge into the cold darkness;
Farewell, vivid brightness of our short-lived summers!
Already I hear the dismal sound of firewood
Falling with a clatter on the courtyard pavements.

All winter will possess my being: wrath,
Hate, horror, shivering, hard, forced labor,
And, like the sun in his polar Hades,
My heart will be no more than a frozen red block.

All atremble I listen to each falling log;
The building of a scaffold has no duller sound.
My spirit resembles the tower which crumbles
Under the tireless blows of the battering ram.

It seems to me, lulled by these monotonous shocks,
That somewhere they're nailing a coffin, in great haste.
For whom? — Yesterday was summer; here is autumn
That mysterious noise sounds like a departure.


秋歌

一

不久我們將淪入森冷的黑暗；
再會罷，太短促的夏天的驕陽！
我已經聽見，帶著慘愴的震撼，
枯木槭槭地落在庭院的階上。

整個冬天將竄入我的身；怨毒，
惱怒，寒噤，恐怖，懲役與苦工；
像寒日在北極的冰窖裡瑟縮，
我的心只是一塊冰冷的紅凍。

我戰兢地聽每條殘枝的傾墜；
建築刑台的迴響也難更瘖啞。
我的心靈像一座城樓的崩潰，
在撞角的沉重迫切的衝擊下。

我聽見，給這單調的震撼所搖，
彷彿有人在勿促地釘著棺材。
為誰呀？——昨兒是夏天；秋又來了！
這神秘聲響像是急迫的相催。


Spleen

I have more memories than if I'd lived a thousand years.

A heavy chest of drawers cluttered with balance-sheets,
Processes, love-letters, verses, ballads,
And heavy locks of hair enveloped in receipts,
Hides fewer secrets than my gloomy brain.
It is a pyramid, a vast burial vault
Which contains more corpses than potter's field.
— I am a cemetery abhorred by the moon,
In which long worms crawl like remorse
And constantly harass my dearest dead.
I am an old boudoir full of withered roses,
Where lies a whole litter of old-fashioned dresses,
Where the plaintive pastels and the pale Bouchers,
Alone, breathe in the fragrance from an opened phial.

Nothing is so long as those limping days,
When under the heavy flakes of snowy years
Ennui, the fruit of dismal apathy,
Becomes as large as immortality.
— Henceforth you are no more, O living matter!
Than a block of granite surrounded by vague terrors,
Dozing in the depths of a hazy Sahara
An old sphinx ignored by a heedless world,
Omitted from the map, whose savage nature
Sings only in the rays of a setting sun.


憂鬱

我有比活了一千年更多的回憶。

一只在抽屜裡塞滿帳單、詩詞、
情書、訴狀、抒情歌曲以及用收據
包裹著一些濃密的頭髮的大櫥，
也不及我煩悶的腦子藏著這樣
多的秘密。它乃是金字塔、大墳場，
它收容了比萬人塚更多的死屍。
——我是一塊連月亮也厭惡的墓地，
那兒，爬行著長蚯蚓，像悔恨一樣，
老是纏住我最親愛的死者不放。
我是充滿枯薔薇的舊日女客廳，
雜亂地放著一些過時的流行品，
發愁的粉畫，布歇（註一）的褪色的油繪，
獨自發出拔塞的香水瓶的香味。

在多雪之年的沉重的雪花下面，
當陰鬱的冷淡所結的果實——厭倦，
正在擴大成為不朽之果的時光，
還有什麼比這跛行的歲月更長？
——活著的物質呀，今後，你不過是一塊
在多霧的撒哈拉沙漠深處沉睡、
被茫茫的恐怖所包圍的花崗石！
不過是個不見知於冷淡的人世、
古老的人面獅，在地圖上被遺忘，
野性難馴，只會對夕陽之光歌唱。

註一：布歇（Francois Boucher，1703-1770）法國，蝕刻畫家，洛可可藝術代表畫家之一。

Charles Pierre Baudelaire 夏爾·波德萊爾

夏爾·波德萊爾（Charles Baudelaire 1821－1867），法國十九世紀最著名的現代派詩人，象徵派詩歌先驅，代表作有《惡之花》
法國詩人。生於巴黎。幼年喪父，母親改嫁。繼父歐皮克上校後來擢升將軍，在第二帝國時期被任命為法國駐西班牙大使。他不理解波德萊爾的詩人氣質和複雜心情，波德萊爾也不能接受繼父的專製作風和高壓手段，於是歐皮克成為波德萊爾最憎恨的人。但波德萊爾對母親感情深厚。這種不正常的家庭關係，不可避免地影響詩人的精神狀態和創作情緒。波德萊爾對資產階級的傳統觀念和道德價值採取了挑戰的態度。他力求掙脫本階級思想意識的枷鎖，探索著在抒情詩的夢幻世界中求得精神的平衡。在這個意義上，波德萊爾是資產階級的浪子。1848年巴黎工人武裝起義，反對復辟王朝，波德萊爾登上街壘，參加戰鬥。
成年以後，波德萊爾繼承了生父的遺產，和巴黎文人藝術家交遊，過著波希米亞人式的浪蕩生活。他的主要詩篇都是在這種內心矛盾和苦悶的氣氛中創作的。
奠定波德萊爾在法國文學史上的重要地位的作品，是詩集《惡之花》。這部詩集1857年初版問世時，只收100首詩。1861年再版時,增為129首。以後多次重版,陸續有所增益。其中詩集一度被認為是淫穢的讀物，被當時政府禁了其中的6首詩，並進行罰款。此事對波德萊爾衝擊頗大。從題材上看，《惡之花》歌唱醇酒、美人，強調官能陶醉，似乎詩人憤世嫉俗，對現實生活採取厭倦和逃避的態度。實質上作者對現實生活不滿，對客觀世界採取了絕望的反抗態度。他揭露生活的陰暗面，歌唱醜惡事物，甚至不厭其煩地描寫一具《腐屍》蛆蟲成堆，惡臭觸鼻，來表現其獨特的愛情觀。（那時，我的美人，請告訴它們，/那些吻吃你的蛆子，/舊愛雖已分解，可是，我已保存/愛的形姿和愛的神髓！）他的詩是對資產階級傳統美學觀點的衝擊。
歷來對於波德萊爾和《惡之花》有各種不同的評論。保守的評論家認為波德萊爾是頹廢詩人，《惡之花》是毒草。資產階級權威學者如朗松和布呂納介等，對波德萊爾也多所貶抑。但他們不能不承認《惡之花》的藝術特色,朗松在批評波德萊爾頹廢之後,又肯定他是「強有力的藝術家」。詩人雨果曾給波德萊爾去信稱讚這些詩篇「像星星一般閃耀在高空」。雨果說：「《惡之花》的作者創作了一個新的寒顫。」
波德萊爾不但是法國象徵派詩歌的先驅，而且是現代主義的創始人之一。現代主義認為，美學上的善惡美醜,與一般世俗的美醜善惡概念不同。現代主義所謂美與善，是指詩人用最適合於表現他內心隱秘和真實的感情的藝術手法，獨特地完美地顯示自己的精神境界。《惡之花》出色地完成這樣的美學使命。
《惡之花》的「惡」字，法文原意不僅指惡劣與罪惡,也指疾病與痛苦。波德萊爾在他的詩集的扉頁上寫給詩人戈蒂耶的獻詞中,稱他的詩篇為「病態之花」,認為他的作品是一種「病態」的藝術。他對於使他遭受「病」的折磨的現實世界懷有深刻的仇恨。他給友人的信中說：「在這部殘酷的書中，我注入了自己的全部思想，整個的心(經過改裝的),整個宗教意識,以及全部仇恨。」這種仇恨情緒之所以如此深刻，正因它本身反映著作者對於健康、光明、甚至「神聖」事物的強烈嚮往。
波德萊爾除詩集《惡之花》以外，還發表了獨具一格的散文詩集《巴黎的憂鬱》(1869)和《人為的天堂》(1860)。他的文學和美術評論集《美學管窺》(1868)和《浪漫主義藝術》在法國的文藝評論史上也有一定的地位。波德萊爾還翻譯美國詩人愛倫□坡的《奇異故事集》和《奇異故事續集》。波德萊爾對象徵主義詩歌的貢獻之一，是他針對浪漫主義的重情感而提出重靈性。所謂靈性，其實就是思想。他總是圍繞著一個思想組織形象，即使在某些偏重描寫的詩中，也往往由於提出了某種觀念而改變了整首詩的含義。

A Simple Heart 一個簡單的心

By Gustave Flaubert

CHAPTER I

FÉLICITÉ

For half a century the housewives of Pont-l'Evêque had envied Madame Aubain her servant Félicité.
For a hundred francs a year, she cooked and did the housework, washed, ironed, mended, harnessed the horse, fattened the poultry, made the butter and remained faithful to her mistress—although the latter was by no means an agreeable person.
Madame Aubain had married a comely youth without any money, who died in the beginning of 1809, leaving her with two young children and a number of debts. She sold all her property excepting the farm of Toucques and the farm of Geffosses, the income of which barely amounted to 5,000 francs; then she left her house in Saint-Melaine, and moved into a less pretentious one which had belonged to her ancestors and stood back of the market-place. This house, with its slate-covered roof, was built between a passage-way and a narrow street that led to the river. The interior was so unevenly graded that it caused people to stumble. A narrow hall separated the kitchen from the parlour, where Madame Aubain sat all day in a straw armchair near the window. Eight mahogany chairs stood in a row against the white wainscoting. An old piano, standing beneath a barometer, was covered with a pyramid of old books and boxes. On either side of the yellow marble mantelpiece, in Louis XV style, stood a tapestry armchair. The clock represented a temple of Vesta; and the whole room smelled musty, as it was on a lower level than the garden.
On the first floor was Madame's bedchamber, a large room papered in a flowered design and containing the portrait of Monsieur dressed in the costume of a dandy. It communicated with a smaller room, in which there were two little cribs, without any mattresses. Next, came the parlour (always closed), filled with furniture covered with sheets. Then a hall, which led to the study, where books and papers were piled on the shelves of a book-case that enclosed three quarters of the big black desk. Two panels were entirely hidden under pen-and-ink sketches, Gouache landscapes and Audran engravings, relics of better times and vanished luxury. On the second floor, a garret-window lighted Félicité's room, which looked out upon the meadows.
She arose at daybreak, in order to attend mass, and she worked without interruption until night; then, when dinner was over, the dishes cleared away and the door securely locked, she would bury the log under the ashes and fall asleep in front of the hearth with a rosary in her hand. Nobody could bargain with greater obstinacy, and as for cleanliness, the lustre on her brass saucepans was the envy and despair of other servants. She was most economical, and when she ate she would gather up crumbs with the tip of her finger, so that nothing should be wasted of the loaf of bread weighing twelve pounds which was baked especially for her and lasted three weeks.
Summer and winter she wore a dimity kerchief fastened in the back with a pin, a cap which concealed her hair, a red skirt, grey stockings, and an apron with a bib like those worn by hospital nurses.
Her face was thin and her voice shrill. When she was twenty-five, she looked forty. After she had passed fifty, nobody could tell her age; erect and silent always, she resembled a wooden figure working automatically.

CHAPTER II

THE HEROINE

Like every other woman, she had had an affair of the heart. Her father, who was a mason, was killed by falling from a scaffolding. Then her mother died and her sisters went their different ways; a farmer took her in, and while she was quite small, let her keep cows in the fields. She was clad in miserable rags, beaten for the slightest offence and finally dismissed for a theft of thirty sous which she did not commit. She took service on another farm where she tended the poultry; and as she was well thought of by her master, her fellow-workers soon grew jealous.
One evening in August (she was then eighteen years old), they persuaded her to accompany them to the fair at Colleville. She was immediately dazzled by the noise, the lights in the trees, the brightness of the dresses, the laces and gold crosses, and the crowd of people all hopping at the same time. She was standing modestly at a distance, when presently a young man of well-to-do appearance, who had been leaning on the pole of a wagon and smoking his pipe, approached her, and asked her for a dance. He treated her to cider and cake, bought her a silk shawl, and then, thinking she had guessed his purpose, offered to see her home. When they came to the end of a field he threw her down brutally. But she grew frightened and screamed, and he walked off.
One evening, on the road leading to Beaumont, she came upon a wagon loaded with hay, and when she overtook it, she recognised Théodore. He greeted her calmly, and asked her to forget what had happened between them, as it "was all the fault of the drink."
She did not know what to reply and wished to run away.
Presently he began to speak of the harvest and of the notables of the village; his father had left Colleville and bought the farm of Les Écots, so that now they would be neighbors. "Ah!" she exclaimed. He then added that his parents were looking around for a wife for him, but that he, himself, was not so anxious and preferred to wait for a girl who suited him. She hung her head. He then asked her whether she had ever thought of marrying. She replied, smilingly, that it was wrong of him to make fun of her. "Oh! no, I am in earnest," he said, and put his left arm around her waist while they sauntered along. The air was soft, the stars were bright, and the huge load of hay oscillated in front of them, drawn by four horses whose ponderous hoofs raised clouds of dust. Without a word from their driver they turned to the right. He kissed her again and she went home. The following week, Théodore obtained meetings.
They met in yards, behind walls or under isolated trees. She was not ignorant, as girls of well-to-do families are—for the animals had instructed her;—but her reason and her instinct of honour kept her from falling. Her resistance exasperated Théodore's love and so in order to satisfy it (or perchance ingenuously), he offered to marry her. She would not believe him at first, so he made solemn promises. But, in a short time he mentioned a difficulty; the previous year, his parents had purchased a substitute for him; but any day he might be drafted and the prospect of serving in the army alarmed him greatly. To Félicité his cowardice appeared a proof of his love for her, and her devotion to him grew stronger. When she met him, he would torture her with his fears and his entreaties. At last, he announced that he was going to the prefect himself for information, and would let her know everything on the following Sunday, between eleven o'clock and midnight.
When the time drew near, she ran to meet her lover.
But instead of Théodore, one of his friends was at the meeting-place.
He informed her that she would never see her sweetheart again; for, in order to escape the conscription, he had married a rich old woman, Madame Lehoussais, of Toucques.
The poor girl's sorrow was frightful. She threw herself on the ground, she cried and called on the Lord, and wandered around desolately until sunrise. Then she went back to the farm, declared her intention of leaving, and at the end of the month, after she had received her wages, she packed all her belongings in a handkerchief and started for Pont-l'Evêque.
In front of the inn, she met a woman wearing widow's weeds, and upon questioning her, learned that she was looking for a cook. The girl did not know very much, but appeared so willing and so modest in her requirements, that Madame Aubain finally said:
"Very well, I will give you a trial."
And half an hour later Félicité was installed in her house.
At first she lived in a constant anxiety that was caused by "the style of the household" and the memory of "Monsieur," that hovered over everything. Paul and Virginia, the one aged seven, and the other barely four, seemed made of some precious material; she carried them pig-a-back, and was greatly mortified when Madame Aubain forbade her to kiss them every other minute.
But in spite of all this, she was happy. The comfort of her new surroundings had obliterated her sadness.
Every Thursday, friends of Madame Aubain dropped in for a game of cards, and it was Félicité's duty to prepare the table and heat the foot-warmers. They arrived at exactly eight o'clock and departed before eleven.
Every Monday morning, the dealer in second-hand goods, who lived under the alley-way, spread out his wares on the sidewalk. Then the city would be filled with a buzzing of voices in which the neighing of horses, the bleating of lambs, the grunting of pigs, could be distinguished, mingled with the sharp sound of wheels on the cobble-stones. About twelve o'clock, when the market was in full swing, there appeared at the front door a tall, middle-aged peasant, with a hooked nose and a cap on the back of his head; it was Robelin, the farmer of Geffosses. Shortly afterwards came Liébard, the farmer of Toucques, short, rotund and ruddy, wearing a grey jacket and spurred boots.
Both men brought their landlady either chickens or cheese. Félicité would invariably thwart their ruses and they held her in great respect.
At various times, Madame Aubain received a visit from the Marquis de Grémanville, one of her uncles, who was ruined and lived at Falaise on the remainder of his estates. He always came at dinner-time and brought an ugly poodle with him, whose paws soiled the furniture. In spite of his efforts to appear a man of breeding (he even went so far as to raise his hat every time he said "My deceased father"), his habits got the better of him, and he would fill his glass a little too often and relate broad stories. Félicité would show him out very politely and say: "You have had enough for this time, Monsieur de Grémanville! Hoping to see you again!" and would close the door.
She opened it gladly for Monsieur Bourais, a retired lawyer. His bald head and white cravat, the ruffling of his shirt, his flowing brown coat, the manner in which he took his snuff, his whole person, in fact, produced in her the kind of awe which we feel when we see extraordinary persons. As he managed Madame's estates, he spent hours with her in Monsieur's study; he was in constant fear of being compromised, had a great regard for the magistracy and some pretensions to learning.
In order to facilitate the children's studies, he presented them with an engraved geography which represented various scenes of the world: cannibals with feather head-dresses, a gorilla kidnapping a young girl, Arabs in the desert, a whale being harpooned, etc.
Paul explained the pictures to Félicité. And, in fact, this was her only literary education.
The children's studies were under the direction of a poor devil employed at the town-hall, who sharpened his pocketknife on his boots and was famous for his penmanship.
When the weather was fine, they went to Geffosses. The house was built in the centre of the sloping yard; and the sea looked like a grey spot in the distance. Félicité would take slices of cold meat from the lunch basket and they would sit down and eat in a room next to the dairy. This room was all that remained of a cottage that had been torn down. The dilapidated wall-paper trembled in the drafts. Madame Aubain, overwhelmed by recollections, would hang her head, while the children were afraid to open their mouths. Then, "Why don't you go and play?" their mother would say; and they would scamper off.
Paul would go to the old barn, catch birds, throw stones into the pond, or pound the trunks of the trees with a stick till they resounded like drums. Virginia would feed the rabbits and run to pick the wild flowers in the fields, and her flying legs would disclose her little embroidered pantalettes. One autumn evening, they struck out for home through the meadows. The new moon illumined part of the sky and a mist hovered like a veil over the sinuosities of the river. Oxen, lying in the pastures, gazed mildly at the passing persons. In the third field, however, several of them got up and surrounded them. "Don't be afraid," cried Félicité; and murmuring a sort of lament she passed her hand over the back of the nearest ox; he turned away and the others followed. But when they came to the next pasture, they heard frightful bellowing.
It was a bull which was hidden from them by the fog. He advanced towards the two women, and Madame Aubain prepared to flee for her life. "No, no! not so fast," warned Félicité. Still they hurried on, for they could hear the noisy breathing of the bull close behind them. His hoofs pounded the grass like hammers, and presently he began to gallop! Félicité turned around and threw patches of grass in his eyes. He hung his head, shook his horns and bellowed with fury. Madame Aubain and the children, huddled at the end of the field, were trying to jump over the ditch. Félicité continued to back before the bull, blinding him with dirt, while she shouted to them to make haste.
Madame Aubain finally slid into the ditch, after shoving first Virginia and then Paul into it, and though she stumbled several times she managed, by dint of courage, to climb the other side of it.
The bull had driven Félicité up against a fence; the foam from his muzzle flew in her face and in another minute he would have disembowelled her. She had just time to slip between two bars and the huge animal, thwarted, paused.
For years, this occurrence was a topic of conversation in Pont-l'Evêque. But Félicité took no credit to herself, and probably never knew that she had been heroic.
Virginia occupied her thoughts solely, for the shock she had sustained gave her a nervous affection, and the physician, M. Poupart, prescribed the saltwater bathing at Trouville. In those days, Trouville was not greatly patronised. Madame Aubain gathered information, consulted Bourais, and made preparations as if they were going on an extended trip.
The baggage was sent the day before on Liébard's cart. On the following morning, he brought around two horses, one of which had a woman's saddle with a velveteen back to it, while on the crupper of the other was a rolled shawl that was to be used for a seat. Madame Aubain mounted the second horse, behind Liébard. Félicité took charge of the little girl, and Paul rode M. Lechaptois' donkey, which had been lent for the occasion on the condition that they should be careful of it.
The road was so bad that it took two hours to cover the eight miles. The two horses sank knee-deep into the mud and stumbled into ditches; sometimes they had to jump over them. In certain places, Liébard's mare stopped abruptly. He waited patiently till she started again, and talked of the people whose estates bordered the road, adding his own moral reflections to the outline of their histories. Thus, when they were passing through Toucques, and came to some windows draped with nasturtiums, he shrugged his shoulders and said: "There's a woman, Madame Lehoussais, who, instead of taking a young man—" Félicité could not catch what followed; the horses began to trot, the donkey to gallop, and they turned into a lane; then a gate swung open, two farm-hands appeared and they all dismounted at the very threshold of the farm-house.
Mother Liébard, when she caught sight of her mistress, was lavish with joyful demonstrations. She got up a lunch which comprised a leg of mutton, tripe, sausages, a chicken fricassée, sweet cider, a fruit tart and some preserved prunes; then to all this the good woman added polite remarks about Madame, who appeared to be in better health, Mademoiselle, who had grown to be "superb," and Paul, who had become singularly sturdy; she spoke also of their deceased grandparents, whom the Liébards had known, for they had been in the service of the family for several generations.
Like its owners, the farm had an ancient appearance. The beams of the ceiling were mouldy, the walls black with smoke and the windows grey with dust. The oak sideboard was filled with all sorts of utensils, plates, pitchers, tin bowls, wolf-traps. The children laughed when they saw a huge syringe. There was not a tree in the yard that did not have mushrooms growing around its foot, or a bunch of mistletoe hanging in its branches. Several of the trees had been blown down, but they had started to grow in the middle and all were laden with quantities of apples. The thatched roofs, which were of unequal thickness, looked like brown velvet and could resist the fiercest gales. But the wagon-shed was fast crumbling to ruins. Madame Aubain said that she would attend to it, and then gave orders to have the horses saddled.
It took another thirty minutes to reach Trouville. The little caravan dismounted in order to pass Les Écores, a cliff that overhangs the bay, and a few minutes later, at the end of the dock, they entered the yard of the Golden Lamb, an inn kept by Mother David.
During the first few days, Virginia felt stronger, owing to the change of air and the action of the sea-baths. She took them in her little chemise, as she had no bathing suit, and afterwards her nurse dressed her in the cabin of a customs officer, which was used for that purpose by other bathers.
In the afternoon, they would take the donkey and go to the Roches-Noires, near Hennequeville. The path led at first through undulating grounds, and thence to a plateau, where pastures and tilled fields alternated. At the edge of the road, mingling with the brambles, grew holly bushes, and here and there stood large dead trees whose branches traced zigzags upon the blue sky.
Ordinarily, they rested in a field facing the ocean, with Deauville on their left, and Havre on their right. The sea glittered brightly in the sun and was as smooth as a mirror, and so calm that they could scarcely distinguish its murmur; sparrows chirped joyfully and the immense canopy of heaven spread over it all. Madame Aubain brought out her sewing, and Virginia amused herself by braiding reeds; Félicité wove lavender blossoms, while Paul was bored and wished to go home.
Sometimes they crossed the Toucques in a boat, and started to hunt for seashells. The outgoing tide exposed starfish and sea-urchins, and the children tried to catch the flakes of foam which the wind blew away. The sleepy waves lapping the sand unfurled themselves along the shore that extended as far as the eye could see, but where land began, it was limited by the downs which separated it from the "Swamp," a large meadow shaped like a hippodrome. When they went home that way, Trouville, on the slope of a hill below, grew larger and larger as they advanced, and, with all its houses of unequal height, seemed to spread out before them in a sort of giddy confusion.
When the heat was too oppressive, they remained in their rooms. The dazzling sunlight cast bars of light between the shutters. Not a sound in the village, not a soul on the sidewalk. This silence intensified the tranquillity of everything. In the distance, the hammers of some calkers pounded the hull of a ship, and the sultry breeze brought them an odour of tar.
The principal diversion consisted in watching the return of the fishing-smacks. As soon as they passed the beacons, they began to ply to windward. The sails were lowered to one third of the masts, and with their foresails swelled up like balloons they glided over the waves and anchored in the middle of the harbour. Then they crept up alongside of the dock and the sailors threw the quivering fish over the side of the boat; a line of carts was waiting for them, and women with white caps sprang forward to receive the baskets and embrace their men-folk.
One day, one of them spoke to Félicité, who, after a little while, returned to the house gleefully. She had found one of her sisters, and presently Nastasie Barette, wife of Léroux, made her appearance, holding an infant in her arms, another child by the hand, while on her left was a little cabin-boy with his hands in his pockets and his cap on his ear.
At the end of fifteen minutes, Madame Aubain bade her go.
They always hung around the kitchen, or approached Félicité when she and the children were out walking. The husband, however, did not show himself.
Félicité developed a great fondness for them; she bought them a stove, some shirts and a blanket; it was evident that they exploited her. Her foolishness annoyed Madame Aubain, who, moreover did not like the nephew's familiarity, for he called her son "thou";—and, as Virginia began to cough and the season was over, she decided to return to Pont-l'Evêque.
Monsieur Bourais assisted her in the choice of a college. The one at Caën was considered the best. So Paul was sent away and bravely said good-bye to them all, for he was glad to go to live in a house where he would have boy companions.
Madame Aubain resigned herself to the separation from her son because it was unavoidable. Virginia brooded less and less over it. Félicité regretted the noise he made, but soon a new occupation diverted her mind; beginning from Christmas, she accompanied the little girl to her catechism lesson every day.

CHAPTER III

DEATH

After she had made a curtsey at the threshold, she would walk up the aisle between the double lines of chairs, open Madame Aubain's pew, sit down and look around.
Girls and boys, the former on the right, the latter on the left-hand side of the church, filled the stalls of the choir; the priest stood beside the reading-desk; on one stained window of the side-aisle the Holy Ghost hovered over the Virgin; on another one, Mary knelt before the Child Jesus, and behind the altar, a wooden group represented Saint Michael felling the dragon.
The priest first read a condensed lesson of sacred history. Félicité evoked Paradise, the Flood, the Tower of Babel, the blazing cities, the dying nations, the shattered idols; and out of this she developed a great respect for the Almighty and a great fear of His wrath. Then, when she listened to the Passion, she wept. Why had they crucified Him who loved little children, nourished the people, made the blind see, and who, out of humility, had wished to be born among the poor, in a stable? The sowings, the harvests, the wine-presses, all those familiar things which the Scriptures mention, formed a part of her life; the word of God sanctified them; and she loved the lambs with increased tenderness for the sake of the Lamb, and the doves because of the Holy Ghost.
She found it hard, however, to think of the latter as a person, for was it not a bird, a flame, and sometimes only a breath? Perhaps it is its light that at night hovers over swamps, its breath that propels the clouds, its voice that renders church-bells harmonious. And Félicité worshipped devoutly, while enjoying the coolness and the stillness of the church.
As for the dogma, she could not understand it and did not even try. The priest discoursed, the children recited, and she went to sleep, only to awaken with a start when they were leaving the church and their wooden shoes clattered on the stone pavement.
In this way, she learned her catechism, her religious education having been neglected in her youth; and thenceforth she imitated all Virginia's religious practises, fasted when she did, and went to confession with her. At the Corpus-Christi Day they both decorated an altar.
She worried in advance over Virginia's first communion. She fussed about the shoes, the rosary, the book and the gloves. With what nervousness she helped the mother dress the child!
During the entire ceremony, she felt anguished. Monsieur Bourais hid part of the choir from view, but directly in front of her, the flock of maidens, wearing white wreaths over their lowered veils, formed a snow-white field, and she recognised her darling by the slenderness of her neck and her devout attitude. The bell tinkled. All the heads bent and there was a silence. Then, at the peals of the organ the singers and the worshippers struck up the Agnus Dei; the boys' procession began; behind them came the girls. With clasped hands, they advanced step by step to the lighted altar, knelt at the first step, received one by one the Host, and returned to their seats in the same order. When Virginia's turn came, Félicité leaned forward to watch her, and through that imagination which springs from true affection, she at once became the child, whose face and dress became hers, whose heart beat in her bosom, and when Virginia opened her mouth and closed her lids, she did likewise and came very near fainting.
The following day, she presented herself early at the church so as to receive communion from the curé. She took it with the proper feeling, but did not experience the same delight as on the previous day.
Madame Aubain wished to make an accomplished girl of her daughter; and as Guyot could not teach English nor music, she decided to send her to the Ursulines at Honfleur.
The child made no objection, but Félicité sighed and thought Madame was heartless. Then, she thought that perhaps her mistress was right, as these things were beyond her sphere. Finally, one day, an old fiacre stopped in front of the door and a nun stepped out. Félicité put Virginia's luggage on top of the carriage, gave the coachman some instructions, and smuggled six jars of jam, a dozen pears and a bunch of violets under the seat.
At the last minute, Virginia had a fit of sobbing; she embraced her mother again and again, while the latter kissed her on her forehead, and said: "Now, be brave, be brave!" The step was pulled up and the fiacre rumbled off.
Then Madame Aubain had a fainting spell, and that evening all her friends, including the two Lormeaus, Madame Lechaptois, the ladies Rochefeuille, Messieurs de Houppeville and Bourais, called on her and tendered their sympathy.
At first the separation proved very painful to her. But her daughter wrote her three times a week and the other days she, herself, wrote to Virginia. Then she walked in the garden, read a little, and in this way managed to fill out the emptiness of the hours.
Each morning, out of habit, Félicité entered Virginia's room and gazed at the walls. She missed combing her hair, lacing her shoes, tucking her in her bed, and the bright face and little hand when they used to go out for a walk. In order to occupy herself she tried to make lace. But her clumsy fingers broke the threads; she had no heart for anything, lost her sleep and "wasted away," as she put it.
In order to have some distraction, she asked leave to receive the visits of her nephew Victor.
He would come on Sunday, after church, with ruddy cheeks and bared chest, bringing with him the scent of the country. She would set the table and they would sit down opposite each other, and eat their dinner; she ate as little as possible, herself, to avoid any extra expense, but would stuff him so with food that he would finally go to sleep. At the first stroke of vespers, she would wake him up, brush his trousers, tie his cravat and walk to church with him, leaning on his arm with maternal pride.
His parents always told him to get something out of her, either a package of brown sugar, or soap, or brandy, and sometimes even money. He brought her his clothes to mend, and she accepted the task gladly, because it meant another visit from him.
In August, his father took him on a coasting-vessel.
It was vacation time and the arrival of the children consoled Félicité. But Paul was capricious, and Virginia was growing too old to be thee-and-thou'd, a fact which seemed to produce a sort of embarrassment in their relations.
Victor went successively to Morlaix, to Dunkirk, and to Brighton; whenever he returned from a trip he would bring her a present. The first time it was a box of shells; the second, a coffee-cup; the third, a big doll of ginger-bread. He was growing handsome, had a good figure, a tiny moustache, kind eyes, and a little leather cap that sat jauntily on the back of his head. He amused his aunt by telling her stones mingled with nautical expressions.
One Monday, the 14th of July, 1819 (she never forgot the date), Victor announced that he had been engaged on merchant-vessel and that in two days he would take the steamer at Honfleur and join his sailer, which was going to start from Havre very soon. Perhaps he might be away two years.
The prospect of his departure filled Félicité with despair, and in order to bid him farewell, on Wednesday night, after Madame's dinner, she put on her pattens and trudged the four miles that separated Pont-l'Evêque from Honfleur.
When she reached the Calvary, instead of turning to the right, she turned to the left and lost herself in coal-yards; she had to retrace her steps; some people she spoke to advised her to hasten. She walked helplessly around the harbour filled with vessels, and knocked against hawsers. Presently the ground sloped abruptly, lights flittered to and fro, and she thought all at once that she had gone mad when she saw some horses in the sky.
Others, on the edge of the dock, neighed at the sight of the ocean. A derrick pulled them up in the air and dumped them into a boat, where passengers were bustling about among barrels of cider, baskets of cheese and bags of meal; chickens cackled, the captain swore and a cabin-boy rested on the railing, apparently indifferent to his surroundings. Félicité, who did not recognise him, kept shouting: "Victor!" He suddenly raised his eyes, but while she was preparing to rush up to him, they withdrew the gangplank.
The packet, towed by singing women, glided out of the harbour. Her hull squeaked and the heavy waves beat up against her sides. The sail had turned and nobody was visible;—and on the ocean, silvered by the light of the moon, the vessel formed a black spot that grew dimmer and dimmer, and finally disappeared.
When Félicité passed the Calvary again, she felt as if she must entrust that which was dearest to her to the Lord; and for a long while she prayed, with uplifted eyes and a face wet with tears. The city was sleeping; some customs officials were taking the air; and the water kept pouring through the holes of the dam with a deafening roar. The town clock struck two.
The parlour of the convent would not open until morning, and surely a delay would annoy Madame; so, in spite of her desire to see the other child, she went home. The maids of the inn were just arising when she reached Pont-l'Evêque.
So the poor boy would be on the ocean for months! His previous trips had not alarmed her. One can come back from England and Brittany; but America, the colonies, the islands, were all lost in an uncertain region at the very end of the world.
From that time on, Félicité thought solely of her nephew. On warm days she feared he would suffer from thirst, and when it stormed, she was afraid he would be struck by lightning. When she harkened to the wind that rattled in the chimney and dislodged the tiles on the roof, she imagined that he was being buffeted by the same storm, perched on top of a shattered mast, with his whole body bent backward and covered with sea-foam; or,—these were recollections of the engraved geography—he was being devoured by savages, or captured in a forest by apes, or dying on some lonely coast. She never mentioned her anxieties, however.
Madame Aubain worried about her daughter.
The sisters thought that Virginia was affectionate but delicate. The slightest emotion enervated her. She had to give up her piano lessons. Her mother insisted upon regular letters from the convent. One morning, when the postman failed to come, she grew impatient and began to pace to and fro, from her chair to the window. It was really extraordinary! No news since four days!
In order to console her mistress by her own example, Félicité said:
"Why, Madame, I haven't had any news since six months!"—
"From whom?"—
The servant replied gently:
"Why—from my nephew."
"Oh, yes, your nephew!" And shrugging her shoulders, Madame Aubain continued to pace the floor as if to say: "I did not think of it.—Besides, I do not care, a cabin-boy, a pauper!—but my daughter—what a difference! just think of it!—"
Félicité, although she had been reared roughly, was very indignant. Then she forgot about it.
It appeared quite natural to her that one should lose one's head about Virginia.
The two children were of equal importance; they were united in her heart and their fate was to be the same.
The chemist informed her that Victor's vessel had reached Havana.He had read the information in a newspaper.
Félicité imagined that Havana was a place where people did nothing but smoke, and that Victor walked around among negroes in a cloud of tobacco. Could a person, in case of need, return by land? How far was it from Pont-l'Evêque? In order to learn these things she questioned Monsieur Bourais. He reached for his map and began some explanations concerning longitudes, and smiled with superiority at Félicité's bewilderment. At last, he took his pencil and pointed out an imperceptible black point in the scallops of an oval blotch, adding: "There it is." She bent over the map; the maze of coloured lines hurt her eyes without enlightening her; and when Bourais asked her what puzzled her, she requested him to show her the house Victor lived in. Bourais threw up his hands, sneezed, and then laughed uproariously; such ignorance delighted his soul; but Félicité failed to understand the cause of his mirth, she whose intelligence was so limited that she perhaps expected to see even the picture of her nephew!
It was two weeks later that Liébard came into the kitchen at market-time, and handed her a letter from her brother-in-law. As neither of them could read, she called upon her mistress.
Madame Aubain, who was counting the stitches of her knitting, laid her work down beside her, opened the letter, started, and in a low tone and with a searching look said: "They tell you of a—misfortune. Your nephew—."
He had died. The letter told nothing more.
Félicité dropped on a chair, leaned her head against the back and closed her lids; presently they grew pink. Then, with drooping head, inert hands and staring eyes she repeated at intervals:
"Poor little chap! poor little chap!"
Liébard watched her and sighed. Madame Aubain was trembling.
She proposed to the girl to go see her sister in Trouville.
With a single motion, Félicité replied that it was not necessary.
There was a silence. Old Liébard thought it about time for him to take leave.
Then Félicité uttered:
"They have no sympathy, they do not care!"
Her head fell forward again, and from time to time, mechanically, she toyed with the long knitting-needles on the work-table.
Some women passed through the yard with a basket of wet clothes.
When she saw them through the window, she suddenly remembered her own wash; as she had soaked it the day before, she must go and rinse it now. So she arose and left the room.
Her tub and her board were on the bank of the Toucques. She threw a heap of clothes on the ground, rolled up her sleeves and grasped her bat; and her loud pounding could be heard in the neighbouring gardens. The meadows were empty, the breeze wrinkled the stream, at the bottom of which were long grasses that looked like the hair of corpses floating in the water. She restrained her sorrow and was very brave until night; but, when she had gone to her own room, she gave way to it, burying her face in the pillow and pressing her two fists against her temples.
A long while afterward, she learned through Victor's captain, the circumstances which surrounded his death. At the hospital they had bled him too much, treating him for yellow fever. Four doctors held him at one time. He died almost instantly, and the chief surgeon had said:
"Here goes another one!"
His parents had always treated him barbarously; she preferred not to see them again, and they made no advances, either from forgetfulness or out of innate hardness.
Virginia was growing weaker.
A cough, continual fever, oppressive breathing and spots on her cheeks indicated some serious trouble. Monsieur Poupart had advised a sojourn in Provence. Madame Aubain decided that they would go, and she would have had her daughter come home at once, had it not been for the climate of Pont-l'Evêque.
She made an arrangement with a livery-stable man who drove her over to the convent every Tuesday. In the garden there was a terrace, from which the view extends to the Seine. Virginia walked in it, leaning on her mother's arm and treading the dead vine leaves. Sometimes the sun, shining through the clouds, made her blink her lids, when she gazed at the sails in the distance, and let her eyes roam over the horizon from the chateau of Tancarville to the lighthouses of Havre. Then they rested in the arbour. Her mother had bought a little cask of fine Malaga wine, and Virginia, laughing at the idea of becoming intoxicated, would drink a few drops of it, but never more.
Her strength returned. Autumn passed. Félicité began to reassure Madame Aubain. But, one evening, when she returned home after an errand, she met M. Boupart's coach in front of the door; M. Boupart himself was standing in the vestibule and Madame Aubain was tying the strings of her bonnet. "Give me my foot-warmer, my purse and my gloves; and be quick about it," she said.
Virginia had congestion of the lungs; perhaps it was desperate.
"Not yet," said the physician, and both got into the carriage, while the snow fell in thick flakes. It was almost night and very cold.
Félicité rushed to the church to light a candle. Then she ran after the coach which she overtook after an hour's chase, sprang up behind and held on to the straps. But suddenly a thought crossed her mind: "The yard had been left open; supposing that burglars got in!" And down she jumped.
The next morning, at daybreak, she called at the doctor's. He had been home, but had left again. Then she waited at the inn, thinking that strangers might bring her a letter. At last, at daylight she took the diligence for Lisieux.
The convent was at the end of a steep and narrow street. When she arrived about at the middle of it, she heard strange noises, a funeral knell. "It must be for some one else," thought she; and she pulled the knocker violently.
After several minutes had elapsed, she heard footsteps, the door was half opened and a nun appeared. The good sister, with an air of compunction, told her that "she had just passed away." And at the same time the tolling of Saint-Léonard's increased.
Félicité reached the second floor. Already at the threshold, she caught sight of Virginia lying on her back, with clasped hands, her mouth open and her head thrown back, beneath a black crucifix inclined toward her, and stiff curtains which were less white than her face. Madame Aubain lay at the foot of the couch, clasping it with her arms and uttering groans of agony. The Mother Superior was standing on the right side of the bed. The three candles on the bureau made red blurs, and the windows were dimmed by the fog outside. The nuns carried Madame Aubain from the room.
For two nights, Félicité never left the corpse. She would repeat the same prayers, sprinkle holy water over the sheets, get up, come back to the bed and contemplate the body. At the end of the first vigil, she noticed that the face had taken on a yellow tinge, the lips grew blue, the nose grew pinched, the eyes were sunken. She kissed them several times and would not have been greatly astonished had Virginia opened them; to souls like these the supernatural is always quite simple. She washed her, wrapped her in a shroud, put her into the casket, laid a wreath of flowers on her head and arranged her curls. They were blond and of an extraordinary length for her age. Félicité cut off a big lock and put half of it into her bosom, resolving never to part with it.
The body was taken to Pont-l'Evêque, according to Madame Aubain's wishes; she followed the hearse in a closed carriage.
After the ceremony it took three quarters of an hour to reach the cemetery. Paul, sobbing, headed the procession; Monsieur Bourais followed, and then came the principal inhabitants of the town, the women covered with black capes, and Félicité. The memory of her nephew, and the thought that she had not been able to render him these honours, made her doubly unhappy, and she felt as if he were being buried with Virginia.
Madame Aubain's grief was uncontrollable. At first she rebelled against God, thinking that he was unjust to have taken away her child—she who had never done anything wrong, and whose conscience was so pure! But no! she ought to have taken her South. Other doctors would have saved her. She accused herself, prayed to be able to join her child, and cried in the midst of her dreams. Of the latter, one more especially haunted her. Her husband, dressed like a sailor, had come back from a long voyage, and with tears in his eyes told her that he had received the order to take Virginia away. Then they both consulted about a hiding-place.
Once she came in from the garden, all upset. A moment before (and she showed the place), the father and daughter had appeared to her, one after the other; they did nothing but look at her.
During several months she remained inert in her room. Félicité scolded her gently; she must keep up for her son and also for the other one, for "her memory."
"Her memory!" replied Madame Aubain, as if she were just awakening, "Oh! yes, yes, you do not forget her!" This was an allusion to the cemetery where she had been expressly forbidden to go.
But Félicité went there every day. At four o'clock exactly, she would go through the town, climb the hill, open the gate and arrive at Virginia's tomb. It was a small column of pink marble with a flat stone at its base, and it was surrounded by a little plot enclosed by chains. The flower-beds were bright with blossoms. Félicité watered their leaves, renewed the gravel, and knelt on the ground in order to till the earth properly. When Madame Aubain was able to visit the cemetery she felt very much relieved and consoled.
Years passed, all alike and marked by no other events than the return of the great church holidays: Easter, Assumption, All Saints' Day. Household happenings constituted the only data to which in later years they often referred. Thus, in 1825, workmen painted the vestibule; in 1827, a portion of the roof almost killed a man by falling into the yard. In the summer of 1828, it was Madame's turn to offer the hallowed bread; at that time, Bourais disappeared mysteriously; and the old acquaintances, Guyot, Liébard, Madame Lechaptois, Robelin, old Grémanville, paralysed since a long time, passed away one by one. One night, the driver of the mail in Pont-l'Evêque announced the Revolution of July. A few days afterward a new sub-prefect was nominated, the Baron de Larsonnière, ex-consul in America, who, besides his wife, had his sister-in-law and her three grown daughters with him. They were often seen on their lawn, dressed in loose blouses, and they had a parrot and a negro servant. Madame Aubain received a call, which she returned promptly. As soon as she caught sight of them, Félicité would run and notify her mistress. But only one thing was capable of arousing her: a letter from her son.
He could not follow any profession as he was absorbed in drinking. His mother paid his debts and he made fresh ones; and the sighs that she heaved while she knitted at the window reached the ears of Félicité who was spinning in the kitchen.
They walked in the garden together, always speaking of Virginia, and asking each other if such and such a thing would have pleased her, and what she would probably have said on this or that occasion.
All her little belongings were put away in a closet of the room which held the two little beds. But Madame Aubain looked them over as little as possible. One summer day, however, she resigned herself to the task and when she opened the closet the moths flew out.
Virginia's frocks were hung under a shelf where there were three dolls, some hoops, a doll-house, and a basin which she had used. Félicité and Madame Aubain also took out the skirts, the handkerchiefs, and the stockings and spread them on the beds, before putting them away again. The sun fell on the piteous things, disclosing their spots and the creases formed by the motions of the body. The atmosphere was warm and blue, and a blackbird trilled in the garden; everything seemed to live in happiness. They found a little hat of soft brown plush, but it was entirely moth-eaten. Félicité asked for it. Their eyes met and filled with tears; at last the mistress opened her arms and the servant threw herself against her breast and they hugged each other and giving vent to their grief in a kiss which equalized them for a moment.
It was the first time that this had ever happened, for Madame Aubain was not of an expansive nature. Félicité was as grateful for it as if it had been some favour, and thenceforth loved her with animal-like devotion and a religious veneration.
Her kind-heartedness developed. When she heard the drums of a marching regiment passing through the street, she would stand in the doorway with a jug of cider and give the soldiers a drink. She nursed cholera victims. She protected Polish refugees, and one of them even declared that he wished to marry her. But they quarrelled, for one morning when she returned from the Angelus she found him in the kitchen coolly eating a dish which he had prepared for himself during her absence.
After the Polish refugees, came Colmiche, an old man who was credited with having committed frightful misdeeds in '93. He lived near the river in the ruins of a pig-sty. The urchins peeped at him through the cracks in the walls and threw stones that fell on his miserable bed, where he lay gasping with catarrh, with long hair, inflamed eyelids, and a tumour as big as his head on one arm.
She got him some linen, tried to clean his hovel and dreamed of installing him in the bake-house without his being in Madame's way. When the cancer broke, she dressed it every day; sometimes she brought him some cake and placed him in the sun on a bundle of hay; and the poor old creature, trembling and drooling, would thank her in his broken voice, and put out his hands whenever she left him. Finally he died; and she had a mass said for the repose of his soul.
That day a great joy came to her: at dinner-time, Madame de Larsonnière's servant called with the parrot, the cage, and the perch and chain and lock. A note from the baroness told Madame Aubain that as her husband had been promoted to a prefecture, they were leaving that night, and she begged her to accept the bird as a remembrance and a token of her esteem.
Since a long time the parrot had been on Félicité's mind, because he came from America, which reminded her of Victor, and she had approached the negro on the subject.
Once even, she had said:
"How glad Madame would be to have him!"
The man had repeated this remark to his mistress who, not being able to keep the bird, took this means of getting rid of it.

CHAPTER IV

THE BIRD

He was called Loulou. His body was green, his head blue, the tips of his wings were pink and his breast was golden.
But he had the tiresome tricks of biting his perch, pulling his feathers out, scattering refuse and spilling the water of his bath. Madame Aubain grew tired of him and gave him to Félicité for good.
She undertook his education, and soon he was able to repeat: "Pretty boy! Your servant, sir! I salute you, Marie!" His perch was placed near the door and several persons were astonished that he did not answer to the name of "Jacquot," for every parrot is called Jacquot. They called him a goose and a log, and these taunts were like so many dagger thrusts to Félicité. Strange stubbornness of the bird which would not talk when people watched him!
Nevertheless, he sought society; for on Sunday, when the ladies Rochefeuille, Monsieur de Houppeville and the new habitués, Onfroy, the chemist, Monsieur Varin and Captain Mathieu, dropped in for their game of cards, he struck the window-panes with his wings and made such a racket that it was impossible to talk.
Bourais' face must have appeared very funny to Loulou. As soon as he saw him he would begin to roar. His voice re-echoed in the yard, and the neighbours would come to the windows and begin to laugh, too; and in order that the parrot might not see him, Monsieur Bourais edged along the wall, pushed his hat over his eyes to hide his profile, and entered by the garden door, and the looks he gave the bird lacked affection. Loulou, having thrust his head into the butcher-boy's basket, received a slap, and from that time he always tried to nip his enemy. Fabu threatened to wring his neck, although he was not cruelly inclined, notwithstanding his big whiskers and tattooings. On the contrary, he rather liked the bird and, out of deviltry, tried to teach him oaths. Félicité, whom his manner alarmed, put Loulou in the kitchen, took off his chain and let him walk all over the house.
When he went downstairs, he rested his beak on the steps, lifted his right foot and then his left one; but his mistress feared that such feats would give him vertigo. He became ill and was unable to eat. There was a small growth under his tongue like those chickens are sometimes afflicted with. Félicité pulled it off with her nails and cured him. One day, Paul was imprudent enough to blow the smoke of his cigar in his face; another time, Madame Lormeau was teasing him with the tip of her umbrella and he swallowed the tip. Finally he got lost.
She had put him on the grass to cool him and went away only for a second; when she returned, she found no parrot! She hunted among the bushes, on the bank of the river, and on the roofs, without paying any attention to Madame Aubain who screamed at her: "Take care! you must be insane!" Then she searched every garden in Pont-l'Evêque and stopped the passers-by to inquire of them: "Haven't you perhaps seen my parrot?" To those who had never seen the parrot, she described him minutely. Suddenly she thought she saw something green fluttering behind the mills at the foot of the hill. But when she was at the top of the hill she could not see it. A hod-carrier told her that he had just seen the bird in Saint-Melaine, in Mother Simon's store. She rushed to the place. The people did not know what she was talking about. At last she came home, exhausted, with her slippers worn to shreds, and despair in her heart. She sat down on the bench near Madame and was telling of her search when presently a light weight dropped on her shoulder—Loulou! What the deuce had he been doing? Perhaps he had just taken a little walk around the town!
She did not easily forget her scare, in fact, she never got over it. In consequence of a cold, she caught a sore throat; and some time afterward she had an earache. Three years later she was stone deaf, and spoke in a very loud voice even in church. Although her sins might have been proclaimed throughout the diocese without any shame to herself, or ill effects to the community, the curé thought it advisable to receive her confession in the vestry-room.
Imaginary buzzings also added to her bewilderment. Her mistress often said to her: "My goodness, how stupid you are!" and she would answer: "Yes, Madame," and look for something.
The narrow circle of her ideas grew more restricted than it already was; the bellowing of the oxen, the chime of the bells no longer reached her intelligence. All things moved silently, like ghosts. Only one noise penetrated her ears: the parrot's voice.
As if to divert her mind, he reproduced for her the tick-tack of the spit in the kitchen, the shrill cry of the fish-vendors, the saw of the carpenter who had a shop opposite, and when the door-bell rang, he would imitate Madame Aubain: "Félicité! go to the front door."
They held conversations together, Loulou repeating the three phrases of his repertory over and over, Félicité replying by words that had no greater meaning, but in which she poured out her feelings. In her isolation, the parrot was almost a son, a lover. He climbed upon her fingers, pecked at her lips, clung to her shawl, and when she rocked her head to and fro like a nurse, the big wings of her cap and the wings of the bird flapped in unison. When clouds gathered on the horizon and the thunder rumbled, Loulou would scream, perhaps because he remembered the storms in his native forests. The dripping of the rain would excite him to frenzy; he flapped around, struck the ceiling with his wings, upset everything, and would finally fly into the garden to play. Then he would come back into the room, light on one of the andirons, and hop around in order to get dry.
One morning during the terrible winter of 1837, when she had put him in front of the fire-place on account of the cold, she found him dead in his cage, hanging to the wire bars with his head down. He had probably died of congestion. But she believed that he had been poisoned, and although she had no proofs whatever, her suspicion rested on Fabu.
She wept so sorely that her mistress said: "Why don't you have him stuffed?"
She asked the advice of the chemist, who had always been kind to the bird.
He wrote to Havre for her. A certain man named Fellacher consented to do the work. But, as the diligence driver often lost parcels entrusted to him, Félicité resolved to take her pet to Honfleur herself.
Leafless apple-trees lined the edges of the road. The ditches were covered with ice. The dogs on the neighbouring farms barked; and Félicité, with her hands beneath her cape, her little black sabots and her basket, trotted along nimbly in the middle of the sidewalk. She crossed the forest, passed by the Haut-Chêne and reached Saint-Gatien.
Behind her, in a cloud of dust and impelled by the steep incline, a mail-coach drawn by galloping horses advanced like a whirlwind. When he saw a woman in the middle of the road, who did not get out of the way, the driver stood up in his seat and shouted to her and so did the postilion, while the four horses, which he could not hold back, accelerated their pace; the two leaders were almost upon her; with a jerk of the reins he threw them to one side, but, furious at the incident, he lifted his big whip and lashed her from her head to her feet with such violence that she fell to the ground unconscious.
Her first thought, when she recovered her senses, was to open the basket. Loulou was unharmed. She felt a sting on her right cheek; when she took her hand away it was red, for the blood was flowing.
She sat down on a pile of stones, and sopped her cheek with her handkerchief; then she ate a crust of bread she had put in her basket, and consoled herself by looking at the bird.
Arriving at the top of Ecquemanville, she saw the lights of Honfleur shining in the distance like so many stars; further on, the ocean spread out in a confused mass. Then a weakness came over her; the misery of her childhood, the disappointment of her first love, the departure of her nephew, the death of Virginia; all these things came back to her at once, and, rising like a swelling tide in her throat, almost choked her.
Then she wished to speak to the captain of the vessel, and without stating what she was sending, she gave him some instructions.
Fellacher kept the parrot a long time. He always promised that it would be ready for the following week; after six months he announced the shipment of a case, and that was the end of it. Really, it seemed as if Loulou would never come back to his home. "They have stolen him," thought Félicité.
Finally he arrived, sitting bolt upright on a branch which could be screwed into a mahogany pedestal, with his foot in the air, his head on one side, and in his beak a nut which the naturalist, from love of the sumptuous, had gilded. She put him in her room.
This place, to which only a chosen few were admitted, looked like a chapel and a second-hand shop, so filled was it with devotional and heterogeneous things. The door could not be opened easily on account of the presence of a large wardrobe. Opposite the window that looked out into the garden, a bull's-eye opened on the yard; a table was placed by the cot and held a washbasin, two combs, and a piece of blue soap in a broken saucer. On the walls were rosaries, medals, a number of Holy Virgins, and a holy-water basin made out of a cocoanut; on the bureau, which was covered with a napkin like an altar, stood the box of shells that Victor had given her; also a watering-can and a balloon, writing-books, the engraved geography and a pair of shoes; on the nail which held the mirror, hung Virginia's little plush hat! Félicité carried this sort of respect so far that she even kept one of Monsieur's old coats. All the things which Madame Aubain discarded, Félicité begged for her own room. Thus, she had artificial flowers on the edge of the bureau, and the picture of the Comte d'Artois in the recess of the window. By means of a board, Loulou was set on a portion of the chimney which advanced into the room. Every morning when she awoke, she saw him in the dim light of dawn and recalled bygone days and the smallest details of insignificant actions, without any sense of bitterness or grief.
As she was unable to communicate with people, she lived in a sort of somnambulistic torpor. The processions of Corpus-Christi Day seemed to wake her up. She visited the neighbours to beg for candlesticks and mats so as to adorn the temporary altars in the street.
In church, she always gazed at the Holy Ghost, and noticed that there was something about it that resembled a parrot. The likeness appeared even more striking on a coloured picture by Espinal, representing the baptism of our Saviour. With his scarlet wings and emerald body, it was really the image of Loulou. Having bought the picture, she hung it near the one of the Comte d'Artois so that she could take them in at one glance.
They associated in her mind, the parrot becoming sanctified through the neighbourhood of the Holy Ghost, and the latter becoming more lifelike in her eyes, and more comprehensible. In all probability the Father had never chosen as messenger a dove, as the latter has no voice, but rather one of Loulou's ancestors. And Félicité said her prayers in front of the coloured picture, though from time to time she turned slightly toward the bird.
She desired very much to enter in the ranks of the "Daughters of the Virgin." But Madame Aubain dissuaded her from it.
A most important event occurred: Paul's marriage.
After being first a notary's clerk, then in business, then in the customs, and a tax collector, and having even applied for a position in the administration of woods and forests, he had at last, when he was thirty-six years old, by a divine inspiration, found his vocation: registrature! and he displayed such a high ability that an inspector had offered him his daughter and his influence.
Paul, who had become quite settled, brought his bride to visit his mother.
But she looked down upon the customs of Pont-l'Evêque, put on airs, and hurt Félicité's feelings. Madame Aubain felt relieved when she left.
The following week they learned of Monsieur Bourais' death in an inn. There were rumours of suicide, which were confirmed; doubts concerning his integrity arose. Madame Aubain looked over her accounts and soon discovered his numerous embezzlements; sales of wood which had been concealed from her, false receipts, etc. Furthermore, he had an illegitimate child, and entertained a friendship for "a person in Dozulé."
These base actions affected her very much. In March, 1853, she developed a pain in her chest; her tongue looked as if it were coated with smoke, and the leeches they applied did not relieve her oppression; and on the ninth evening she died, being just seventy-two years old.
People thought that she was younger, because her hair, which she wore in bands framing her pale face, was brown. Few friends regretted her loss, for her manner was so haughty that she did not attract them. Félicité mourned for her as servants seldom mourn for their masters. The fact that Madame should die before herself perplexed her mind and seemed contrary to the order of things, and absolutely monstrous and inadmissible. Ten days later (the time to journey from Besançon), the heirs arrived. Her daughter-in-law ransacked the drawers, kept some of the furniture, and sold the rest; then they went back to their own home.
Madame's armchair, foot-warmer, work-table, the eight chairs, everything was gone! The places occupied by the pictures formed yellow squares on the walls. They had taken the two little beds, and the wardrobe had been emptied of Virginia's belongings! Félicité went upstairs, overcome with grief.
The following day a sign was posted on the door; the chemist screamed in her ear that the house was for sale.
For a moment she tottered, and had to sit down.
What hurt her most was to give up her room,—so nice for poor Loulou! She looked at him in despair and implored the Holy Ghost, and it was this way that she contracted the idolatrous habit of saying her prayers kneeling in front of the bird. Sometimes the sun fell through the window on his glass eye, and lighted a great spark in it which sent Félicité into ecstasy.
Her mistress had left her an income of three hundred and eighty francs. The garden supplied her with vegetables. As for clothes, she had enough to last her till the end of her days, and she economised on the light by going to bed at dusk.
She rarely went out, in order to avoid passing in front of the second-hand dealer's shop where there was some of the old furniture. Since her fainting spell, she dragged her leg, and as her strength was failing rapidly, old Mother Simon, who had lost her money in the grocery business, came every morning to chop the wood and pump the water.
Her eyesight grew dim. She did not open the shutters after that. Many years passed. But the house did not sell or rent. Fearing that she would be put out, Félicité did not ask for repairs. The laths of the roof were rotting away, and during one whole winter her bolster was wet. After Easter she spit blood.
Then Mother Simon went for a doctor. Félicité wished to know what her complaint was. But, being too deaf to hear, she caught only one word: "Pneumonia." She was familiar with it and gently answered:—"Ah! like Madame," thinking it quite natural that she should follow her mistress.
The time for the altars in the street drew near.
The first one was always erected at the foot of the hill, the second in front of the post-office, and the third in the middle of the street. This position occasioned some rivalry among the women and they finally decided upon Madame Aubain's yard.
Félicité's fever grew worse. She was sorry that she could not do anything for the altar. If she could, at least, have contributed something toward it! Then she thought of the parrot. Her neighbours objected that it would not be proper. But the curé gave his consent and she was so grateful for it that she begged him to accept after her death, her only treasure, Loulou. From Tuesday until Saturday, the day before the event, she coughed more frequently. In the evening her face was contracted, her lips stuck to her gums and she began to vomit; and on the following day, she felt so low that she called for a priest.
Three neighbours surrounded her when the dominie administered the Extreme Unction. Afterwards she said that she wished to speak to Fabu.
He arrived in his Sunday clothes, very ill at ease among the funereal surroundings.
"Forgive me," she said, making an effort to extend her arm, "I believed it was you who killed him!"
What did such accusations mean? Suspect a man like him of murder!And Fabu became excited and was about to make trouble.
"Don't you see she is not in her right mind?"
From time to time Félicité spoke to shadows. The women left her and Mother Simon sat down to breakfast.
A little later, she took Loulou and holding him up to Félicité:
"Say good-bye to him, now!" she commanded.
Although he was not a corpse, he was eaten up by worms; one of his wings was broken and the wadding was coming out of his body. But Félicité was blind now, and she took him and laid him against her cheek. Then Mother Simon removed him in order to set him on the altar.

CHAPTER V

THE VISION

The grass exhaled an odour of summer; flies buzzed in the air, the sun shone on the river and warmed the slated roof. Old Mother Simon had returned to Félicité and was peacefully falling asleep.
The ringing of bells woke her; the people were coming out of church. Félicité's delirium subsided. By thinking of the procession, she was able to see it as if she had taken part in it. All the school-children, the singers and the firemen walked on the sidewalks, while in the middle of the street came first the custodian of the church with his halberd, then the beadle with a large cross, the teacher in charge of the boys and a sister escorting the little girls; three of the smallest ones, with curly heads, threw rose leaves into the air; the deacon with outstretched arms conducted the music; and two incense-bearers turned with each step they took toward the Holy Sacrament, which was carried by M. le Curé, attired in his handsome chasuble and walking under a canopy of red velvet supported by four men. A crowd of people followed, jammed between the walls of the houses hung with white sheets; at last the procession arrived at the foot of the hill.
A cold sweat broke out on Félicité's forehead. Mother Simon wiped it away with a cloth, saying inwardly that some day she would have to go through the same thing herself.
The murmur of the crowd grew louder, was very distinct for a moment and then died away. A volley of musketry shook the window-panes. It was the postilions saluting the Sacrament.
Félicité rolled her eyes and said as loudly as she could:
"Is he all right?" meaning the parrot.
Her death agony began. A rattle that grew more and more rapid shook her body. Froth appeared at the corners of her mouth, and her whole frame trembled. In a little while could be heard the music of the bass horns, the clear voices of the children and the men's deeper notes. At intervals all was still, and their shoes sounded like a herd of cattle passing over the grass.
The clergy appeared in the yard. Mother Simon climbed on a chair to reach the bull's-eye, and in this manner could see the altar. It was covered with a lace cloth and draped with green wreaths. In the middle stood a little frame containing relics; at the corners were two little orange-trees, and all along the edge were silver candlesticks, porcelain vases containing sun-flowers, lilies, peonies, and tufts of hydrangeas. This mound of bright colours descended diagonally from the first floor to the carpet that covered the sidewalk. Rare objects arrested one's eye. A golden sugar-bowl was crowned with violets, earrings set with Alençon stones were displayed on green moss, and two Chinese screens with their bright landscapes were near by. Loulou, hidden beneath roses, showed nothing but his blue head which looked like a piece of lapis-lazuli.
The singers, the canopy-bearers and the children lined up against the sides of the yard. Slowly the priest ascended the steps and placed his shining sun on the lace cloth. Everybody knelt. There was deep silence; and the censers slipping on their chains were swung high in the air. A blue vapour rose in Félicité's room. She opened her nostrils and inhaled it with a mystic sensuousness; then she closed her lids. Her lips smiled. The beats of her heart grew fainter and fainter, and vaguer, like a fountain giving out, like an echo dying away;—and when she exhaled her last breath, she thought she saw in the half-opened heavens a gigantic parrot hovering above her head.